Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 240, which features a clock speed of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 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 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon R7 240 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB will be much (more or less 105%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 240. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15400 (105%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is superior to the Radeon R7 240, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.