Radeon HD 4870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this card. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be 20% quicker than the Radeon R9 M385X in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be much (more or less 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (105%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M385X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.