Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also 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 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 10560 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 134%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14312 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB is a little bit (more or less 7%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.