GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		210 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		144000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 is a lot (approximately 37%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		40992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10992 (37%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17280 (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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 video 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.