Radeon HD 7870 XT vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 260X, which has GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1625 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 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 R7 260X		4381 points
	Difference: 2009 (46%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870 XT		15 Mh/s
Radeon R7 260X		14 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (7%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R7 260X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 88000 (85%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be a lot (approximately 44%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (44%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (68%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has 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 better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.