Radeon HD 4850 2GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 224448 (353%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (about 335%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83800 (335%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (approximately 172%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

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