GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5450, which features clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 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 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 is a bit (about 18%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 is just a bit (more or less 18%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (18%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.