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GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB comes with a clock speed of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 902 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 825 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB 57728 MB/sec
Difference: 57472 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is just a bit (about 5%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB 25056 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1344 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be much (about 111%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB 12528 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 13872 (111%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTS 450 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name GF106 R680
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 783 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 3608 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 57728 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 25056 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12528 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1170 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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