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Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB has a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4730, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
Radeon HD 4730 140 Watts
Difference: 65 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4730 should in theory be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730 57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4730 will be much (more or less 110%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730 22400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 11712 (110%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be a lot (more or less 91%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4730, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730 5600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 5088 (91%)

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 4730

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 4730
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 8, 2009
Code Name RV670 PRO RV770/CE
Memory 256 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 668 MHz 700 MHz
Memory Speed 1656 MHz 3600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 140 watts
Bandwidth 52992 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10688 Mtexels/sec 22400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10688 Mpixels/sec 5600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
Render Output Units 16 8
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 128-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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4730

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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