GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up 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 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 56704 (81%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is a little bit (more or less 6%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2768 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 69%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8192 (69%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.