GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 109 Watts (99%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 570 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 88448 (139%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be much (more or less 76%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18920 (76%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be much (more or less 193%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19280 (193%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.