Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 400(80x5) SPUs along with 20 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 189 Watts (310%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 99% quicker than the Radeon HD 5670 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 63104 (99%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be a lot (approximately 223%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34500 (223%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 223%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5670, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13800 (223%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.