Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (84%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is much (approximately 335%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61600 (335%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (248%)

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 moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.