GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 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 860M		45 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 305 Watts (678%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTX 860M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be much (approximately 28%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16512 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is superior to the GeForce GTX 860M, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11248 (88%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.