GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 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 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 5450 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be quite a bit (about 300%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (300%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (300%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 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 max fill rate.