GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 570 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be quite a bit (approximately 76%) better 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 is much (approximately 193%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that 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 number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.