GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (120%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 37952 (148%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 184%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16200 (184%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.