GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (322%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (875%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB is a lot (more or less 1011%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36400 (1011%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4890 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14200 (789%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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