Geforce GTX 690 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which has a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 190 Watts (173%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 690 should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 320960 (505%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 will be much (about 837%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 209240 (837%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 is quite a bit (approximately 486%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 48560 (486%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 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 could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.