Radeon HD 4850 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which has core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should be 353% faster than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 224448 (353%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a lot (about 335%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83800 (335%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 172%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.