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Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 960 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850 127 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 250 Watts
Difference: 123 Watts (97%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850 128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 127104 MB/sec
Difference: 896 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be much (approximately 34%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850 37200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 12800 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is quite a bit (about 24%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850 24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB 20000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4800 (24%)

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

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Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6850

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 4850 X2 1GB Radeon HD 6850
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 7, 2008 October 2010
Code Name R700 Barts Pro
Memory 1024 MB (x2) 1024 MB
Core Speed 625 MHz (x2) 775 MHz
Memory Speed 1986 MHz (x2) 4000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 250 watts 127 watts
Bandwidth 127104 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 50000 Mtexels/sec 37200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 20000 Mpixels/sec 24800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) (x2) 960
Texture Mapping Units 40 (x2) 48
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 956 million 1700 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge) PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could 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 Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially 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 4850 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6850

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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