Radeon HD 4850 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1500 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

The Radeon R9 280X should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (about 335%) faster with regards to 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.