GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be 24% faster than the GeForce GTX 465 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 24512 (24%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 87%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23292 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a bit (about 3%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 465, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 576 (3%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.