GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (137%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 is a lot (approximately 44%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (44%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5450 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.