GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 590, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 855 MHz on this model. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
GeForce GTS 450		1453 points
	Difference: 5227 (360%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 259 Watts (244%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 270592 (469%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is quite a bit (approximately 210%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52640 (210%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 590 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45744 (365%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip 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 Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.