Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1600 SPUs as well as 160 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 will be 101% faster than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
	Difference: 128896 (101%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is quite a bit (more or less 364%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 182000 (364%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (approximately 364%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 72800 (364%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.