Radeon HD 4730 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is 121% quicker than the Radeon HD 4730 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be quite a bit (more or less 123%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (123%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be a lot (approximately 257%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4730, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (257%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.