GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which has core speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs 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 GT 1GB		38 FPS
	Difference: 23 FPS (61%)

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 GT 1GB		34 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (18%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		55 FPS
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		55 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

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 GT 1GB		41 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (22%)

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 GT 1GB		37 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (46%)

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 GT 1GB		47 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (26%)

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 GT 1GB		16 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (50%)

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 GT 1GB		33 FPS
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		29 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (14%)

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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 71 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 GT 1GB		301 FPS
	Difference: 71 FPS (24%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 34%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8600 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 chip can possibly write 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 core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.