Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X will be 88% quicker than the Radeon HD 5870 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134400 (88%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a lot (about 60%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40800 (60%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be able to handle the same resolutions. (explain)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved 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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.