Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which features core speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 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 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 90048 (142%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be much (more or less 120%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30040 (120%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be much (about 175%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17520 (175%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.