GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which features GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be much (about 146%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43920 (146%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32352 (270%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 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 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.