GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features clock speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 will be 11% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12928 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be much (more or less 51%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.