GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit 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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
	Difference: 65280 (51%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be just a bit (approximately 1%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 592 (1%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (about 85%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17056 (85%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the 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 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.