GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 RAM set to run at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be 25% faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be much (approximately 433%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (433%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB will be a lot (more or less 167%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (167%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.