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Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 110 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 90 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 63552 MB/sec
Difference: 96448 (152%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is quite a bit (about 182%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 45400 (182%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (about 156%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 10000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 15600 (156%)

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

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4850 512MB Radeon HD 6950 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 December 2010
Code Name RV770 PRO Cayman Pro
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 625 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 1986 MHz 5000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 110 watts 200 watts
Bandwidth 63552 MB/sec 160000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 25000 Mtexels/sec 70400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10000 Mpixels/sec 25600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) 1408
Texture Mapping Units 40 88
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 956 million 2640 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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