Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which features a core clock speed of 970 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1425 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 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 380 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 380 4G should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 118848 (187%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G is much (approximately 335%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83640 (335%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be a lot (more or less 210%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21040 (210%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.