Radeon HD 4670 512MB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised 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 4670 512MB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (380%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be much (more or less 233%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56000 (233%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is superior to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26000 (433%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.