GeForce GTS 450 1GB 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 speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 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 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is 120% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 69376 (120%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be quite a bit (about 100%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24944 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is much (about 60%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.