GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which has core clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 142 Watts (258%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (approximately 300%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 57600 (300%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 300%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (300%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.