Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1600 SPUs along with 160 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5970 should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be much (approximately 287%) more effective at AF 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 much (more or less 287%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and 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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in one second.

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