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Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB has a GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory runs at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 975 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 190 Watts
Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should in theory perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB 124800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 9600 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB is a lot (about 33%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 10000 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be quite a bit (about 33%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 12000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4000 (33%)

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

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4870 512MB Radeon HD 4890 1GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name RV770 XT RV790 XT
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 750 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 3900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 150 watts 190 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 124800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 30000 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12000 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 40 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 956 million 959 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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