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Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB has a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
Radeon HD 4830 512MB 95 Watts
Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4830 512MB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 72%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 18400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 7712 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be just a bit (about 16%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB 9200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1488 (16%)

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 256MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4830 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 256MB Radeon HD 4830 512MB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Oct 21, 2008
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770 LE
Memory 256 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 668 MHz 575 MHz
Memory Speed 1656 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 52992 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10688 Mtexels/sec 18400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10688 Mpixels/sec 9200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 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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