GeForce GTX 1050 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050		75 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be 0% faster than the GeForce GTX 1050 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 512 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 should be much (about 81%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		54160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24160 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 will be quite a bit (approximately 261%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		43328 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31328 (261%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.