GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4650 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 700 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 142 Watts (258%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (471%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 300%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 57600 (300%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (300%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.