GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which features a clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should be quite a bit (approximately 38%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11472 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4128 (34%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.