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Radeon HD 4890 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB features core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 975 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5870, which features core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870 188 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 190 Watts
Difference: 2 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870 153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 124800 MB/sec
Difference: 28800 (23%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be much (about 70%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870 68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 28000 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870 27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 11200 (70%)

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

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Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4890 1GB Radeon HD 5870
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Apr 2, 2009 September 23, 2009
Code Name RV790 XT Cypress XT
Memory 1024 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 1000 MHz 850 MHz
Memory Speed 3900 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 190 watts 188 watts
Bandwidth 124800 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 40000 Mtexels/sec 68000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16000 Mpixels/sec 27200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) 1600(320x5)
Texture Mapping Units 40 80
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 959 million 2154 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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