GeForce GTX 295 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 295 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
	Difference: 96672 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be much (more or less 84%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42160 (84%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 295 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12256 (61%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.