Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (111%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be 178% faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (178%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (more or less 283%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52000 (283%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16400 (178%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total 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 per second.

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