GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 memory works at a frequency 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 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 50752 (397%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB will be quite a bit (about 189%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16360 (189%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be much (about 131%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5680 (131%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.