GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be a lot (more or less 42%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.