Radeon HD 4890 2GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X will be 131% quicker than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163200 (131%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 172%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68800 (172%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (70%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its 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 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.