GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (131%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is much (approximately 46%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13840 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be much (more or less 46%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5536 (46%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.