Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X is 150% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 172800 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (approximately 263%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78800 (263%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.