GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (about 251%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75392 (251%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10584 (88%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must 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 can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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