GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features a GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 290 Watts (483%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 965M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M is a bit (more or less 1%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 416 (1%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (26%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.