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GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 has a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 110 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 87 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 63552 MB/sec
Difference: 64448 (101%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 207%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 51800 (207%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be quite a bit (approximately 92%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 10000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9200 (92%)

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

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GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Amazon.com

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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 9800 GX2 Radeon HD 4850 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Mar 2008 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name G92 RV770 PRO
Memory 512 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz (x2) 625 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz (x2) 1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 197 watts 110 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate 76800 Mtexels/sec 25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19200 Mpixels/sec 10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 (x2) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 64 (x2) 40
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR4
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9800 GX2

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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