Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 172800 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (about 263%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78800 (263%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (127%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.