Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 250, which has clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1150 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 384 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (131%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R7 250 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (57%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a lot (approximately 25%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (50%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.