Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 993 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be a lot (more or less 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6600 (36%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (9%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.