Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 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 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 1GB will be much (more or less 72%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.