GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. ATi has clocked the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM runs at a speed of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 33 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 192 (0%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be just a bit (about 2%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 376 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB will be a little bit (about 3%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 260 (3%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.