Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5770, which has a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 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 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5770 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 13248 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 should be a lot (about 36%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9000 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 will be a lot (more or less 36%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (36%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.