GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which has core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 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

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 650 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 35200 (44%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is a bit (approximately 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3856 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 will be much (approximately 41%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4928 (41%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen 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 texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.