GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 980 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (approximately 140%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 84128 (140%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be a lot (more or less 200%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 48064 (200%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.