Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which comes with a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 should be 87% quicker than the Radeon R9 M270X overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 62400 (87%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be quite a bit (more or less 74%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M270X. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21400 (74%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17200 (148%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.