GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 876 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
GeForce GTX 850M		3340 points
	Difference: 310 (9%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 210 Watts (525%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 850M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 145408 (454%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a bit (more or less 20%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19584 (140%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 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 get to the max fill rate.