Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1650 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 230 Watts (192%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory be a bit faster than the Radeon RX 470 4GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB will be quite a bit (more or less 98%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58528 (98%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB will be much (about 23%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5632 (23%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.