GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which features GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 22848 (36%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be quite a bit (more or less 51%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (62%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.