Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250, which has a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1150 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 250, in theory, should perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 10048 (16%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be just a bit (more or less 4%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1000 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (25%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.