GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960M should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 448 (1%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (about 75%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18840 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7536 (75%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.