Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280, which comes with a core clock speed of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 124800 (108%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is quite a bit (about 248%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 74496 (248%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is much (approximately 149%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17856 (149%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must 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 are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that 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 Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.