Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which has a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (96%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5970 is 122% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be much (about 673%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 202000 (673%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be much (approximately 673%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80800 (673%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.