GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), which features a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 160 SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is much (about 73%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 1GB DDR2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.