GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 234 Watts (202%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 131904 (134%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (approximately 108%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31200 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be a little bit (about 11%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (11%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.