GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which features a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is quite a bit (approximately 36%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

The GeForce GTX 470 is a lot (approximately 143%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.