Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon RX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 460 2GB, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1090 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 13% quicker than the Radeon RX 460 2GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15104 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 2GB should be much (about 22%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		61040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11040 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		17440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2560 (15%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.