GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which has a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 207 Watts (481%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 101824 (403%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be much (approximately 286%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37040 (286%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is a lot (about 363%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 320, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15680 (363%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.