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GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 960 has clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which features core speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15104 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is much (about 44%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22128 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be quite a bit (approximately 80%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16064 (80%)

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

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GeForce GTX 960

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Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce GTX 960	Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB
Manufacturer	nVidia	AMD
Year	January 2015	Nov 7, 2008
Code Name	GM206	R700
Memory	2048 MB	1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed	1127 MHz	625 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed	7000 MHz	1986 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP)	120 watts	250 watts
Bandwidth	112000 MB/sec	127104 MB/sec
Texel Rate	72128 Mtexels/sec	50000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	36064 Mpixels/sec	20000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	1024	800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units	64	40 (x2)
Render Output Units	32	16 (x2)
Bus Type	GDDR5	GDDR3
Bus Width	128-bit	256-bit (x2)
Fab Process	28 nm	55 nm
Transistors	2940 million	956 million
Bus	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version	DirectX 12.0	DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 4.5	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

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