Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which features GPU core speed of 1120 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2304 Stream Processors, 144 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

In theory, the Radeon RX 480 4GB should be 49% faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall, due to its greater data rate. (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 much (about 102%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 480 4GB is a better choice, though only just barely. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred 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 RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a 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. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.