GeForce GTX 880M vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 880M		130 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 880M will be 11% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M is a lot (more or less 307%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		122112 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92112 (307%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M is much (about 154%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		30528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.