GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (144%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 860M should in theory be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 448 (1%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a lot (about 206%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51512 (206%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M is quite a bit (about 28%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2752 (28%)

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 over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.