Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M395X, which comes with a clock frequency of 723 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M395X will be 39% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (39%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X should be a lot (approximately 208%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62544 (208%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is much (about 93%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11136 (93%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.