GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 993 MHz on this specific model. 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 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 113856 (179%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (approximately 68%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17000 (68%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (236%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR 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 better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.