GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 825 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is much (approximately 39%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7440 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be a lot (more or less 39%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM), and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7440 (39%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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