Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 184 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5970 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 192448 (303%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is quite a bit (about 828%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 207000 (828%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is quite a bit (approximately 828%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 82800 (828%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.