GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5450, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is quite a bit (about 66%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3440 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a lot (about 66%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5450, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1720 (66%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.