Radeon HD 4670 512MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with 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 is comprised of 960 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 57 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6850 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be quite a bit (more or less 55%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be much (about 313%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (313%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.