Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be much better 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 (approximately 335%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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 should be much (more or less 172%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.