Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5670, which has a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 89 Watts (146%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 5670 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 94%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14500 (94%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB will be much (more or less 94%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5670, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (94%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must 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 can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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