Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which comes with GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7770 should theoretically perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 8448 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is much (more or less 60%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15000 (60%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is much (more or less 60%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (60%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.