GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which has GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (95%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 470 should be 111% quicker than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 70368 (111%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot (about 36%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8992 (36%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14280 (143%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.