Radeon HD 4790 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 260X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1625 MHz on this model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 260X should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4790 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X should be much (about 221%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42400 (221%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X should be a lot (more or less 83%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4790, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (83%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends 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 maximum fill rate.