Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 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 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 224448 (353%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (about 335%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83800 (335%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a lot (about 172%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17200 (172%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.