GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, 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 bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 560 should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12928 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be much (about 51%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13920 (116%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.