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Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 75 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 110 Watts
Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 134%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be a little bit (about 7%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 10000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 688 (7%)

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

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Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3850 512MB Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770 PRO
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 668 MHz 625 MHz
Memory Speed 1656 MHz 1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 110 watts
Bandwidth 52992 MB/sec 63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10688 Mtexels/sec 25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10688 Mpixels/sec 10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 956 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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