Radeon HD 4830 1GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M290X should be 167% quicker than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be much (approximately 270%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49600 (270%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.