Radeon HD 4870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M295X, which has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M295X should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (53%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be quite a bit (approximately 220%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66000 (220%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be a lot (approximately 100%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (100%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.