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GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 110 Watts
Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be 10% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB will be a bit (approximately 20%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 20800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should be a small bit (about 4%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 10000 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

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GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GT 1GB Radeon HD 4850 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Feb 2008 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name G94a/b RV770 PRO
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 650 MHz 625 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 95 watts 110 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate 20800 Mtexels/sec 25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10400 Mpixels/sec 10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 64 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 32 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR4
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 505 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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