GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

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

F.E.A.R. 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Unknown (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		61 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		31 FPS
	Difference: 30 FPS (97%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		40 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		32 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (25%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		55 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		50 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (10%)

Far Cry 2

Settings:	Very High Qualty
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-920,3 x 2 GB Ram,Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit SP1 (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		50 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		33 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (52%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		54 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		31 FPS
	Difference: 23 FPS (74%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		59 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		37 FPS
	Difference: 22 FPS (59%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		24 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		15 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (60%)

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		29 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		26 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (12%)

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB wins overall, by 117 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		372 FPS
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		255 FPS
	Difference: 117 FPS (46%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is just a bit (about 20%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a small bit (more or less 4%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.