GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 500 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be 25% faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be quite a bit (about 433%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (433%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (167%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.