GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 1472 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be quite a bit (about 66%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16600 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) will be just a bit (about 4%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.