GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 6848 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 89%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22232 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1808 (18%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.