Radeon HD 4830 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which features GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X is 400% faster than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 230400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 491%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90400 (491%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (more or less 196%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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.