GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. ATi has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		36 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		20 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (80%)

F.E.A.R. 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Unknown (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		73 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (7%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		65 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 14 FPS (27%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		84 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		71 FPS
	Difference: 13 FPS (18%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		72 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		71 FPS
	Difference: 1 FPS (1%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		89 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
	Difference: 11 FPS (14%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		80 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		77 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (4%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		117 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		96 FPS
	Difference: 21 FPS (22%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		55 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		38 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (45%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		28 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (7%)

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce GTX 280		57 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 21 FPS (58%)

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GeForce GTX 280 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce GTX 280 wins overall, by 74 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

GeForce GTX 280		738 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		664 FPS
	Difference: 74 FPS (11%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 26496 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (approximately 61%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18160 (61%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (more or less 61%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7264 (61%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.