Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also 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 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 230400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (more or less 491%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90400 (491%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (approximately 196%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18000 (196%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total 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 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 card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.