Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 260X, which features a clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1625 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should in theory be a little bit superior to the Radeon R7 260X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 11200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X should be a lot (about 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (105%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (47%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.