Radeon HD 4790 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270 will be 75% faster than the Radeon HD 4790 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (75%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be quite a bit (about 275%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52800 (275%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (200%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.