GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 1792 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be 150% quicker than the GeForce GTX 870M in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a small bit (more or less 18%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15792 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be a bit (approximately 13%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3016 (13%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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