GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

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

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 280 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (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 a lot (about 93%) faster with regards to 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 a high resolution 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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.