ATI Radeon HD 5450 GDDR3 vs Connect3D Radeon X1950 Pro 512 MB (R38-PD3B)

Having 3 times as many ROPs helps the Connect3D Radeon X1950 Pro 512 MB to deliver considerably better pixel fill rate, even though it has lower graphics frequency. Having higher pixel fillrate allows the GPU to draw more pixels on screen and off screen, which is beneficial for some 3D effects in games, or when playing at higher display resolutions.

Even though its graphics clock is slower, the Radeon X1950 Pro 512 MB comes with many more Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), resulting in better texture fill rate. Better maximum texture fill rate allows the graphics card to map more textures, utilize more sophisticated 3D effects for each texel, or render 3D image / game environment at higher resolutions without loss of detail.

To speed up processing, the cards store 3D scene data, textures and intermediate data, used for image generation, in on-board memory. The video memory usually has much higher bandwidth than system RAM, and more bandwidth allows the GPU to run at higher screen resolutions, use larger and more detailed textures, and apply more complex 3D effects and filters. The bandwidth depends on a few components, such as memory type, speed, and memory interface width. Specifically, the Connect3D Radeon X1950 Pro 512 MB offers wider memory bus. As a result, it has significantly higher memory bandwidth.