Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 260X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1625 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870		6230 points
Radeon R7 260X		4381 points
	Difference: 1849 (42%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
Radeon R7 260X		95 Sol/s
	Difference: 77 (81%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
Radeon R7 260X		14 Mh/s
	Difference: 2 (14%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 should be 48% quicker than the Radeon R7 260X overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (48%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (more or less 30%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is superior to the Radeon R7 260X, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (82%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.