Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5770, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 142 Watts (131%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be 66% faster than the Radeon HD 5770 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
	Difference: 50304 (66%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 47%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5770. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB will be much (about 47%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5770, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (47%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.