GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which features core clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 980M		9476 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 6606 (230%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 980M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot (approximately 98%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49248 (98%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be quite a bit (more or less 131%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6870, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37632 (131%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.