GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 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 1GB		110 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX, in theory, should be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 6848 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be quite a bit (about 73%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18200 (73%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GTX is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (8%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.