Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 320 has a GPU clock speed of 540 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 790 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 72 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 993 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 67 Watts (156%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 38272 (151%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is quite a bit (about 93%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12040 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5680 (131%)

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.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GT 320

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB

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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 GT 320	Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Manufacturer	nVidia	AMD
Year	February 2010	Jun 25, 2008
Code Name	GT215	RV770 PRO
Memory	1024 MB	512 MB
Core Speed	540 MHz	625 MHz
Memory Speed	1580 MHz	1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	43 watts	110 watts
Bandwidth	25280 MB/sec	63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate	12960 Mtexels/sec	25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	4320 Mpixels/sec	10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	72	800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units	24	40
Render Output Units	8	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	128-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	40 nm	55 nm
Transistors	727 million	956 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10.1	DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.3	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

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