GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It 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 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be 80% quicker than the GeForce GTX 860M overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 155%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46512 (155%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a little bit (approximately 6%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 752 (6%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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