GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 260 Watts (289%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 950 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 124672 (118%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be much (approximately 22%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10848 (22%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 will be quite a bit (about 37%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8768 (37%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.