Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs along with 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5850 should theoretically be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
	Difference: 896 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a little bit (about 4%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a little bit (about 16%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (16%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high 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 speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.