GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 160 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 6450 (OEM)		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 should be a lot (more or less 73%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		5000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3640 (73%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 should be quite a bit (about 73%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.