GeForce GTX 880M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which features 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 is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 880M		130 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 880M should be 11% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M should be quite a bit (more or less 307%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		122112 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92112 (307%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M will be quite a bit (more or less 154%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		30528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18528 (154%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.