Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 4750

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4750, which features a core clock speed of 730 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be 4% quicker than the Radeon HD 4750 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4750		51200 MB/sec
	Difference: 1792 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4750 will be a lot (about 119%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4750		23360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12672 (119%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4750 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 4750		11680 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 992 (9%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.