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Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB comes with a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 880 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 150 Watts
Radeon HD 6970 250 Watts
Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 will be 53% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 60800 (53%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is quite a bit (more or less 182%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 54480 (182%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be quite a bit (more or less 135%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 12000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 16160 (135%)

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

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6970

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4870 512MB Radeon HD 6970
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 December 2010
Code Name RV770 XT Cayman XT
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 750 MHz 880 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 5500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 150 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 176000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 30000 Mtexels/sec 84480 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12000 Mpixels/sec 28160 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) 1536
Texture Mapping Units 40 96
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 956 million 2640 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

2 Responses to “Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970”
GPU Upgrade Advice Needed... says:

[...] you will see a good performance, just from the 4 series to 6 series jump. Heres a great comparison Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare All in all you wouldnt be disappointed or ripped off getting a 6970. I7 950 D0@ 4.1Ghz [...]

malik usama says:

4870 is best card

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