GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses 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)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470 should in theory perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 18720 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a little bit (more or less 13%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3992 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12280 (102%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high 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 texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.