Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M385X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M385X should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is quite a bit (about 235%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43200 (235%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M385X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (91%)

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 moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.