GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which features GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 9984 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be a small bit (more or less 13%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2416 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 is a little bit (approximately 13%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM), and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2416 (13%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in a 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. The figure is calculated 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of 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.