Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 69504 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 172%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (172%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 117%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (117%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.