GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which has a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4650 512MB should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB will be much (more or less 433%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (433%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 512MB is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (167%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This 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 video 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 the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.