Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which has a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600 SPUs, 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

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (about 364%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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 will be a lot (approximately 364%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could 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 colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.