Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 975 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		36 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		20 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (80%)

F.E.A.R. 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Unknown (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		88 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (13%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		63 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (24%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		80 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		71 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (13%)

Far Cry 2

Settings:	Very High Qualty
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-920,3 x 2 GB Ram,Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit SP1 (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		69 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		61 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (13%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		80 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		72 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (11%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		87 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (12%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		88 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		77 FPS
	Difference: 11 FPS (14%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		107 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		96 FPS
	Difference: 11 FPS (11%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		64 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		55 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (16%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30 FPS
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		30 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		41 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (14%)

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Radeon HD 4890 1GB wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB wins overall, by 108 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		833 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		725 FPS
	Difference: 108 FPS (15%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB should theoretically be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 33%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be a lot (approximately 33%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (33%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR 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 amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.