GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which comes with a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be a small bit (about 20%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.