GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is much (about 34%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8600 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB will be a bit (about 4%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at 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 could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.