GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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 1GB in general. (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 a lot (more or less 51%) faster with regards to texture filtering 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

The GeForce GTX 560 is a lot (more or less 116%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.