GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which features core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 88 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 is 20% quicker than the GeForce GTX 980M overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be much (about 47%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31648 (47%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39232 (144%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.