GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which features GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (285%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 63104 (99%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be a bit (approximately 14%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 960M. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6160 (14%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2464 (14%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.