Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be a lot (more or less 134%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 688 (7%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.