GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 160 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (75%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is a lot (more or less 73%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		5000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3640 (73%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is superior to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		2500 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1820 (73%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This 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 handling 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 card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.