Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M385X, which features a core clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically be a little bit better than the Radeon R9 M385X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is much (more or less 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is much (about 47%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (47%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.