GeForce RTX 4090 vs ATI Radeon HD 4850

Place in the ranking	807	1
Place by popularity	not in top-100	6
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.21	18.82
Power efficiency	1.69	15.49
Architecture	TeraScale (2005−2013)	Ada Lovelace (2022−2024)
GPU code name	RV770	AD102
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	25 June 2008 (16 years ago)	20 September 2022 (2 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$199	$1,599

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

RTX 4090 has 8862% better value for money than ATI HD 4850.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	800	16384
Core clock speed	625 MHz	2235 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	2520 MHz
Number of transistors	956 million	76,300 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	5 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	110 Watt	450 Watt
Texture fill rate	25.00	1,290
Floating-point processing power	1 TFLOPS	82.58 TFLOPS
ROPs	16	176
TMUs	40	512
Tensor Cores	no data	512
Ray Tracing Cores	no data	128

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16
Length	246 mm	304 mm
Width	1-slot	3-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin	1x 16-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR3	GDDR6X
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	24 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	384 Bit
Memory clock speed	993 MHz	1313 MHz
Memory bandwidth	63.55 GB/s	1.01 TB/s
Shared memory	-	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	2x DVI, 1x S-Video	1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI	-	+

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model	4.1	6.8
OpenGL	3.3	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	3.0
Vulkan	N/A	1.3
CUDA	-	8.9

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

ATI HD 4850 2.66

RTX 4090 100.00
+3659%

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

ATI HD 4850 1026

RTX 4090 38578
+3660%

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

ATI HD 4850 8972

RTX 4090 137609
+1434%

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

ATI HD 4850 11272

RTX 4090 260357
+2210%

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

ATI HD 4850 72891

RTX 4090 771257
+958%

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p	29 −3521%	1050−1100 +3521%
Full HD	40 −568%	267 +568%
1200p	19 −3584%	700−750 +3584%
1440p	5−6 −3980%	204 +3980%
4K	3−4 −4833%	148 +4833%

Cost per frame, $

1080p	4.98	5.99
1440p	39.80	7.84
4K	66.33	10.80

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

5−6

−4400%

225
+4400%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	9−10 −2511%	235 +2511%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	287
Battlefield 5	4−5 −6000%	240−250 +6000%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	7−8 −1614%	120−130 +1614%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −4340%	222 +4340%
Far Cry 5	5−6 −2260%	110−120 +2260%
Far Cry New Dawn	7−8 −2771%	200−210 +2771%
Forza Horizon 4	12−14 −2138%	290−300 +2138%
Hitman 3	7−8 −1743%	120−130 +1743%
Horizon Zero Dawn	21−24 −1576%	350−400 +1576%
Metro Exodus	2−3 −7650%	150−160 +7650%
Red Dead Redemption 2	6−7 −1967%	120−130 +1967%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−12 −4100%	450−500 +4100%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −305%	150−160 +305%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	9−10 −2156%	200−210 +2156%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	248
Battlefield 5	4−5 −6000%	240−250 +6000%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	7−8 −1614%	120−130 +1614%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −4180%	214 +4180%
Far Cry 5	5−6 −2260%	110−120 +2260%
Far Cry New Dawn	7−8 −2771%	200−210 +2771%
Forza Horizon 4	12−14 −2138%	290−300 +2138%
Hitman 3	7−8 −1743%	120−130 +1743%
Horizon Zero Dawn	21−24 −1576%	350−400 +1576%
Metro Exodus	2−3 −7650%	150−160 +7650%
Red Dead Redemption 2	6−7 −1967%	120−130 +1967%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−12 −4882%	548 +4882%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 −1754%	240−250 +1754%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −305%	150−160 +305%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	9−10 −1889%	179 +1889%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	220
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	7−8 −1614%	120−130 +1614%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −4100%	210 +4100%
Far Cry 5	5−6 −2260%	110−120 +2260%
Forza Horizon 4	12−14 −2138%	290−300 +2138%
Hitman 3	7−8 −1743%	120−130 +1743%
Horizon Zero Dawn	21−24 −1776%	394 +1776%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−12 −4818%	541 +4818%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 −2246%	305 +2246%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −303%	153 +303%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

6−7

−1967%

120−130
+1967%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	4−5 −4050%	160−170 +4050%
Far Cry New Dawn	4−5 −2700%	110−120 +2700%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −7650%	155 +7650%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	2−3 −4000%	80−85 +4000%
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 −15300%	154 +15300%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −2700%	80−85 +2700%
Hitman 3	8−9 −1625%	130−140 +1625%
Horizon Zero Dawn	7−8 −5443%	388 +5443%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2−3 −13300%	268 +13300%
Watch Dogs: Legion	16−18 −1400%	240−250 +1400%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

6−7

−2050%

120−130
+2050%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	1−2 −8700%	85−90 +8700%
Far Cry New Dawn	1−2 −6800%	65−70 +6800%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −5900%	120 +5900%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 −11900%	120 +11900%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	1−2 −5100%	50−55 +5100%
Far Cry 5	1−2 −4900%	50−55 +4900%
Watch Dogs: Legion	0−1	117

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

4−5

−2675%

110−120
+2675%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Valhalla	183 +0%	183 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	270−280 +0%	270−280 +0%
Metro Exodus	152 +0%	152 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	504 +0%	504 +0%

4K
High Preset

Hitman 3	80−85 +0%	80−85 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	105 +0%	105 +0%
Metro Exodus	140−150 +0%	140−150 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	281 +0%	281 +0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Cyberpunk 2077	80 +0%	80 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	250−260 +0%	250−260 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	282 +0%	282 +0%

This is how ATI HD 4850 and RTX 4090 compete in popular games:

RTX 4090 is 3521% faster in 900p
RTX 4090 is 568% faster in 1080p
RTX 4090 is 3584% faster in 1200p
RTX 4090 is 3980% faster in 1440p
RTX 4090 is 4833% faster in 4K

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

in Cyberpunk 2077, with 1440p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the RTX 4090 is 15300% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

RTX 4090 is ahead in 57 tests (84%)
there's a draw in 11 tests (16%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	2.66	100.00
Recency	25 June 2008	20 September 2022
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	24 GB
Chip lithography	55 nm	5 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	110 Watt	450 Watt

ATI HD 4850 has 309.1% lower power consumption.

RTX 4090, on the other hand, has a 3659.4% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 14 years, a 4700% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 1000% more advanced lithography process.

The GeForce RTX 4090 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 4850 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.