Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270X should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be quite a bit (about 167%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20000 (167%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.