GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3328 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is a small bit (more or less 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5360 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9920 (62%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied per second.

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