GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 6848 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be much (approximately 89%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22232 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be just a bit (about 18%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1808 (18%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.