Radeon HD 4650 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 195 Watts (355%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 272000 (1700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is much (approximately 467%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4650 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 89600 (467%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (467%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.