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Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon R7 260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1625 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X 115 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 150 Watts
Difference: 35 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon R7 260X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X 104000 MB/sec
Difference: 11200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is a lot (about 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X 61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 31600 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is quite a bit (about 47%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X 17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 12000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 5600 (47%)

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

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon R7 260X

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4870 512MB Radeon R7 260X
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 October 2013
Code Name RV770 XT Bonaire XTX
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 750 MHz 1100 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 6500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 150 watts 115 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 104000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 30000 Mtexels/sec 61600 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12000 Mpixels/sec 17600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) 896
Texture Mapping Units 40 56
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors 956 million 2080 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R7 260X

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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