Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M370X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M370X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon R9 M370X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M370X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X is just a bit (approximately 7%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		32000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (7%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X is just a bit (approximately 7%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.