Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which features a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1440(288x5) Stream Processors, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5850 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 64448 (101%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a lot (about 109%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (109%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (approximately 132%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (132%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved 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 type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 processed in a second.

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