Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 975 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Avatar

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

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		36 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		33 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (9%)

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 1GB		33 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (9%)

Crysis

Settings:	Very High
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-975 Extreme, 6GB RAM, Windows 7 x64, DirectX 11 (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		29 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		26 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (12%)

Crysis

Settings:	High Detail
AA:	4x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Intel Core i5-750,Windows 7 Ultimate x64,3 x 2GB (Source)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		42 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		38 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (11%)

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 1GB		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 1GB		58 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (9%)

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 1GB		74 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (8%)

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 1GB		74 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (8%)

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 1GB		80 FPS
	Difference: 7 FPS (9%)

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 1GB		80 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (10%)

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 1GB		98 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (9%)

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 1GB		57 FPS
	Difference: 7 FPS (12%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

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

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 1GB		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 76 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		871 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		795 FPS
	Difference: 76 FPS (10%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be a lot (about 33%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 33%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 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 potential to get to the max fill rate.