Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260, which features a core clock frequency of 715 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should in theory be much better than the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (620%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be a lot (approximately 75%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12840 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6280 (110%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 can be processed in one second. This 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 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.