GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is 20% quicker than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is much (more or less 58%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11040 (58%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (58%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.