GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (85%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be 105% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 65024 (105%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be a little bit (approximately 20%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92). (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be a lot (more or less 92%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (92%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.