GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also makes use of 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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be 10% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 5824 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB is just a bit (about 0%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56 (0%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2528 (25%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.