GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 memory works at a speed of 993 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be much (approximately 34%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8600 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 2GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.