GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 27328 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be much (more or less 683%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21856 (683%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 292%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9328 (292%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.