Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon RX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 460 2GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1090 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically be a bit better than the Radeon RX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (3%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 2GB will be much (about 103%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		61040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31040 (103%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 2GB is quite a bit (about 45%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		17440 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5440 (45%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.