Radeon HD 4870 2GB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 550, which comes with a core clock speed of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should theoretically be just 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 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon RX 550 is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, by far. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.