Radeon HD 4850 1GB vs Radeon HD 7950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 176448 (278%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 should be much (about 258%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64600 (258%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (156%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.