GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 120% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 69376 (120%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be much (more or less 100%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24944 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 60%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7472 (60%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.