Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which has a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270X should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 115648 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be much (approximately 220%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55000 (220%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (approximately 220%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22000 (220%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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