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GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 comes with a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM runs at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 182 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 250 Watts
Difference: 68 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be quite a bit (about 36%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 13136 (36%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 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

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 16, 2008 Nov 7, 2008
Code Name G200 R700
Memory 896 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 576 MHz 625 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 1986 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 127104 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 50000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 20000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 40 (x2)
Render Output Units 28 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1400 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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