GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 993 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 51648 (81%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a lot (more or less 51%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (116%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.