Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5770, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be 50% faster than the Radeon HD 5770 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 will be a little bit (approximately 13%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5770 is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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