GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a speed of 500 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be 240% quicker than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (240%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB is just a bit (approximately 9%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (9%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.