Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 5750 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5750 1GB, which has core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 1150 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 720(144x5) SPUs along with 36 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5750 1GB		86 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be 57% faster than the Radeon HD 5750 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5750 1GB		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (57%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a bit (about 19%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5750 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 1GB		25200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be a small bit (about 7%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5750 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 1GB		11200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.