GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980M should theoretically be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be a lot (more or less 232%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69648 (232%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be a lot (about 454%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 54432 (454%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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