Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 470, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1650 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon RX 470		11756 points
Radeon HD 7870		6230 points
	Difference: 5526 (89%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 470		289 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
	Difference: 117 (68%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 470		26 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 10 (63%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 470 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 is a lot (approximately 48%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a little bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon RX 470, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 470		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.