GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should in theory perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 18304 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is much (more or less 37%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be just a bit (more or less 4%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (4%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.