Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 550, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon RX 550 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 512 (0%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 is a bit (about 17%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 is much (approximately 47%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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