GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM 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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 950 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 9472 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 should be much (approximately 64%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19152 (64%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20768 (173%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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