Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon RX 480

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 480, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1120 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 2000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon RX 480		13349 points
Radeon HD 7970		8225 points
	Difference: 5124 (62%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 480		27 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7970		21 Mh/s
	Difference: 6 (29%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480		150 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7970 should theoretically be a small bit faster than the Radeon RX 480 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 480		262144 MB/sec
	Difference: 1856 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 is a lot (more or less 36%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7970. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		161280 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42880 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 will be a lot (approximately 21%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 7970, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		35840 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6240 (21%)

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 max amount of data (in units of 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 speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.