Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB vs Radeon HD 5750 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1150 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 720(144x5) SPUs, 36 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		86 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 164 Watts (191%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 53504 (73%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be a lot (approximately 98%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5750 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		25200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24800 (98%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		11200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (79%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.