Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M385X, which comes with GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 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 2GB should in theory be a small bit superior to the Radeon R9 M385X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be much (more or less 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be much (approximately 47%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (47%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.