GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, 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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 is 123% quicker than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be quite a bit (about 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

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.