GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (173%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is 260% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a lot (approximately 22%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6560 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2624 (22%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.