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. ATi has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 993 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator 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 8800 GTS (G92)		42 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (45%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		36 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (11%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		59 FPS
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		55 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (7%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		45 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (11%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		40 FPS
	Difference: 14 FPS (35%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		51 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (16%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		17 FPS
	Difference: 7 FPS (41%)

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)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		35 FPS
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		29 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (21%)

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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 47 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 8800 GTS (G92)		325 FPS
	Difference: 47 FPS (14%)

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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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be a small 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 much (more or less 66%) better 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, but only just. (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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.