GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 50752 (397%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB will be a lot (approximately 189%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16360 (189%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 2GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5680 (131%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.