Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit 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 much (more or less 491%) faster with regards to texture 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

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, by far. (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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.