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Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB 150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 190 Watts
Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should theoretically be a little bit superior to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 33%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be much (more or less 33%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 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 2GB

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 2GB Radeon HD 4890 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jun 25, 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name RV770 XT RV790 XT
Memory 2048 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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4870 2GB

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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