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Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which has core speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 110 Watts
Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be quite a bit (about 134%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a small bit (about 7%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 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 256MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4850 2GB

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 256MB Radeon HD 4850 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770 PRO
Memory 256 MB 2048 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 GDDR4
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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 2GB

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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