GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (114%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be a lot (about 70%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be a lot (approximately 173%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (173%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.