GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 1403% quicker than the Radeon HD 5450 overall, because of 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 quite a bit (more or less 850%) faster with regards to 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

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 5450, by far. (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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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