Radeon HD 4650 512MB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280, which features a clock frequency of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 195 Watts (355%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280 should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (1400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 will be quite a bit (more or less 444%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 85296 (444%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25056 (522%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.