GeForce GTX 850M vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (175%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 850M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 31552 (99%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be quite a bit (more or less 40%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10040 (40%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4016 (40%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.