Radeon HD 4850 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should theoretically be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 8448 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should be quite a bit (about 60%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15000 (60%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X 2GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.