GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 15216 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be a lot (more or less 21%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8528 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 24%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3872 (24%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.