GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which has GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR4 RAM set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 64576 (102%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be much (about 81%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20360 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15920 (159%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.