GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 49%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (49%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (108%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.