GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. 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 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 965M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be a lot (about 101%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30416 (101%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.