GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 27 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5870 should in theory be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 19680 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (approximately 100%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34008 (100%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2920 (12%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.