Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M230, which has a clock frequency of 780 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB, in theory, should be much faster than the Radeon R5 M230 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 47552 (297%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be quite a bit (more or less 60%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R5 M230. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9400 (60%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6880 (221%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.