Radeon HD 4670 512MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (116%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (320%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be quite a bit (more or less 110%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (110%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (approximately 380%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (380%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.