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Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, 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 1GB 110 Watts
Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB will be 20% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB 63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be a lot (more or less 134%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be just a bit (more or less 7%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB 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 1GB

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 1GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770 PRO
Memory 512 MB 1024 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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 1GB

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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