Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 926 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1650 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, 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 470 4GB		270 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
	Difference: 98 (57%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 470 4GB		27 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 11 (69%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 470 4GB, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (38%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB will be quite a bit (more or less 48%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38528 (48%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2368 (8%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.