Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which features clock speeds of 970 MHz on the GPU, and 1425 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 380 2G		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 380 2G should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 67200 (58%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G will be much (about 262%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78640 (262%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G will be much (more or less 159%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.