GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 975 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 12912 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a little bit (about 4%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1472 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 128 (1%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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.