GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 650 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 35200 (44%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is just a bit (more or less 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3856 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 650 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.