Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M230, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 780 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 320 SPUs along with 20 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon R5 M230 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (620%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be a lot (more or less 92%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R5 M230. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (92%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8880 (285%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.