Radeon HD 3850 X2 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 993 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 42432 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is just a bit (more or less 17%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3624 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 X2 is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11376 (114%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.