Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 550, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, 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

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should perform a bit faster than the Radeon RX 550 overall. (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 small bit (approximately 17%) better at 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 should be quite a bit (about 47%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 number of pixels the video card can 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 colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.