Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon RX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 460 2GB, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1090 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 275 Watts (367%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be 106% quicker than the Radeon RX 460 2GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (106%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 2GB will be just a bit (about 2%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		61040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1040 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be a lot (approximately 38%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon RX 460 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		17440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6560 (38%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.