Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5670, which features clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 400(80x5) SPUs along with 20 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 289 Watts (474%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 5670 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (260%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a lot (approximately 287%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44500 (287%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be a lot (approximately 287%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17800 (287%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

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. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.