Radeon HD 4890 1GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Avatar

Settings:	Ultra High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		52 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		36 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (44%)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		44 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		36 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (22%)

Crysis

Settings:	High Detail
AA:	4x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Intel Core i5-750,Windows 7 Ultimate x64,3 x 2GB (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		50 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		42 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (19%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		76 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		63 FPS
	Difference: 13 FPS (21%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		100 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		80 FPS
	Difference: 20 FPS (25%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		104 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		88 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (18%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		124 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		107 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (16%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		78 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		64 FPS
	Difference: 14 FPS (22%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		30 FPS
Radeon HD 5850		30 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

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Radeon HD 5850 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 5850 wins overall, by 112 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 5850		658 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		546 FPS
	Difference: 112 FPS (21%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5850 should in theory be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (3%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a lot (more or less 31%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12200 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (about 45%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (45%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.