GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 205 Watts (141%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a lot (more or less 82%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49200 (82%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be a lot (approximately 180%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43200 (180%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of 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.