GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 295 Watts (536%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be 620% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (620%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (approximately 64%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 950M. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23440 (64%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (approximately 64%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 950M, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9376 (64%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.