GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be 10% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is much (more or less 25%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		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 largest amount of information (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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.