Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 715 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should in theory be much faster than the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 111104 (694%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be a lot (approximately 191%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32840 (191%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be a lot (about 250%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R7 M260, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14280 (250%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.