Radeon HD 4650 1GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 880 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1375 MHz on this model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 195 Watts (355%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6970 should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (686%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a lot (more or less 340%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65280 (340%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is a lot (about 487%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23360 (487%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 video card could possibly write 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.