GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 570 should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
	Difference: 24896 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is a small bit (approximately 14%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6080 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is a lot (more or less 46%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9280 (46%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.