Radeon HD 4850 2GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270, which features GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 115648 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be a lot (about 188%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47000 (188%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (188%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.