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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 160 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB should be 125% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 will be quite a bit (approximately 44%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		6000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2640 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is much (about 44%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		3000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1320 (44%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.