Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 5500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 5500 XT, which comes with GPU core speed of 1717 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR6 RAM set to run at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		130 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 5500 XT will be 49% quicker than the Radeon HD 7870 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		229376 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 75776 (49%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 5500 XT will be much (more or less 89%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		151096 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71096 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 5500 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 7870, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		54944 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22944 (72%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.