GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB is 10% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 5824 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be a little bit (approximately 0%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56 (0%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 25%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2528 (25%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is 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 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.