Radeon HD 4850 2GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 64448 (101%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be much (more or less 49%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12200 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be much (approximately 148%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (148%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a 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 Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.