GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 113856 (179%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit (about 68%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17000 (68%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a lot (more or less 236%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (236%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few 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.