GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 950, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 42176 (66%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 will be a lot (more or less 97%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24152 (97%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 will be much (more or less 228%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22768 (228%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.