Radeon HD 4730 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should in theory be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4730 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5952 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be just a bit (approximately 12%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4400 (79%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.