GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be 25% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 14272 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be a lot (approximately 102%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12656 (102%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.