Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1425 MHz on this specific model. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 Texture Address Units 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 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380 4G should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 67200 (58%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G should be a lot (approximately 262%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78640 (262%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be quite a bit (about 159%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.