Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7850, which has core clock speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is a lot (about 199%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36640 (199%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be much (approximately 199%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18320 (199%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.