GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be a lot (more or less 34%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8600 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.