GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5450, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (1184%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 1403% quicker than the Radeon HD 5450 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179584 (1403%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a lot (more or less 850%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44208 (850%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much (more or less 1325%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5450, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.