Geforce GTX 780 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 780, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4870 X2 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57984 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 will be quite a bit (about 176%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 105696 (176%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 780 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17424 (73%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.