GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be 80% faster than the GeForce GTX 965M in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be a lot (about 101%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30416 (101%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18208 (152%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 graphics 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 number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.