GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a clock frequency of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (189%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7850 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is quite a bit (approximately 1429%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51440 (1429%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is quite a bit (approximately 1429%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25720 (1429%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.