Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which features GPU clock speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 96 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be 31% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (31%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is a lot (more or less 41%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24480 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4160 (17%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range 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 worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.