GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It features 2304 SPUs, 144 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 480 4GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 133376 (139%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be a lot (more or less 53%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55888 (53%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 480 4GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 870M, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13256 (59%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many 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.