GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of 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 2GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is quite a bit (more or less 38%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11472 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.