GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which has a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 126 Watts (115%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 78144 (123%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be much (approximately 93%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23160 (93%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a lot (more or less 93%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9264 (93%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.