GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 is 94% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be much (approximately 380%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 114128 (380%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 60064 (501%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.