Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1650 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 470 4GB should be 57% faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (57%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB should be quite a bit (about 135%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68128 (135%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 470 4GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6870, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 832 (3%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.