GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4790, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560, in theory, should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4790 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25728 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is quite a bit (about 136%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26160 (136%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16320 (170%)

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 over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.