Radeon HD 4890 1GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1440(288x5) Stream Processors, 72 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 5850		151 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 should be 3% faster than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (3%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (more or less 31%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12200 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be much (more or less 45%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (45%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.