GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 188 Watts (177%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 should be 343% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 198272 (343%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be a lot (approximately 826%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 206944 (826%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (approximately 641%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80272 (641%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.