Radeon HD 4790 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1500 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 280X should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4790 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 185600 (181%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 467%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 89600 (467%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 183%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4790, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (183%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.