Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 575 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB is a lot (approximately 72%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7712 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB will be a small bit (approximately 16%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1488 (16%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.