Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 550, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this particular card. It features 512 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the Radeon RX 550 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 will be a bit (approximately 17%) faster with regards to texture 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 will be much (approximately 47%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.