GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which features GPU clock speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 870M should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 32448 (51%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be quite a bit (more or less 322%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 80392 (322%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12584 (126%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its 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 core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.