GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 4650 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 700 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 189 Watts (344%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 169984 (759%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 157%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30208 (157%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (about 672%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32256 (672%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.