Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which features a core clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870 XT		6390 points
Radeon HD 7870		6230 points
	Difference: 160 (3%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870 XT		15 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (7%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be 25% faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be just a bit (about 11%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 video 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.