Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270, which has a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be much (approximately 140%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42000 (140%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (140%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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