Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which has a core clock frequency of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 480 4GB		267 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
	Difference: 95 (55%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 480 4GB		25 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 9 (56%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 75776 (49%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be quite a bit (about 102%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81280 (102%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB is a bit (approximately 12%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7870, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (12%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.