Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1400 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 115648 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (approximately 220%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55000 (220%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22000 (220%)

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 over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.