GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should theoretically perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is much (about 251%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75392 (251%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10584 (88%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.