GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 134 Watts (122%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 128832 (203%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (about 98%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24408 (98%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27056 (271%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.