Radeon HD 4850 1GB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5670, which comes with a core clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 49 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5670 should be 1% quicker than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 448 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is much (more or less 61%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9500 (61%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 1GB is superior to the Radeon HD 5670, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (61%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.