GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 450 should theoretically be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be quite a bit (more or less 102%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12656 (102%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 is a little bit (about 1%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 128 (1%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.