GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5450, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 should be a bit (about 18%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5450 is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (18%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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