Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 X2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is much (about 287%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 172000 (287%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (about 287%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 68800 (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.