Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 240, which comes with GPU core speed of 730 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320 Stream Processors, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically be much better than the Radeon R7 240 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is much (about 105%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 240. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15400 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 105%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 240, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6160 (105%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.