Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1425 MHz on this particular model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 380 2G		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380 2G should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 67200 (58%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G will be quite a bit (about 262%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78640 (262%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G should be a lot (more or less 159%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19040 (159%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.