GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which has a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency 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 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be a lot (about 49%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (49%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (108%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.