GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5450, which comes with GPU core speed of 650 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (1184%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5450 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179584 (1403%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (more or less 850%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44208 (850%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34456 (1325%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.