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Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 75 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 110 Watts
Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should theoretically be a little bit better than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be a lot (about 134%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be a small bit (more or less 7%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB 10000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 688 (7%)

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

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Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3850 512MB Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770 PRO
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 668 MHz 625 MHz
Memory Speed 1656 MHz 1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 110 watts
Bandwidth 52992 MB/sec 63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10688 Mtexels/sec 25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10688 Mpixels/sec 10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 956 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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