GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 48448 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be quite a bit (about 189%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47128 (189%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26064 (261%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen 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 texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.