GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (approximately 146%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43920 (146%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.