GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is a bit (approximately 20%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a small bit (more or less 4%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.