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Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB features clock speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 975 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 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 2GB 190 Watts
Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 124800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 9600 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 33%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 10000 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be a lot (about 33%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 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 2GB

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 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name RV770 XT RV790 XT
Memory 512 MB 2048 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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 2GB

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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