Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which features a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5870 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon R9 M270X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (113%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a lot (approximately 134%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R9 M270X. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39000 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (approximately 134%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon R9 M270X, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (134%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.