GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 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 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be quite a bit (more or less 23%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6864 (23%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.