GeForce GTX 275 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which features core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 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 275		39 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		20 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (95%)

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 275		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 275		61 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (20%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce GTX 275		86 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		71 FPS
	Difference: 15 FPS (21%)

Far Cry 2

Settings:	Very High Qualty
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-920,3 x 2 GB Ram,Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit SP1 (Source)

GeForce GTX 275		64 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		61 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (5%)

Left4Dead

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

GeForce GTX 275		74 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		72 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (3%)

Left4Dead

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

GeForce GTX 275		90 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (15%)

Left4Dead 2

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

GeForce GTX 275		85 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		77 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (10%)

Mass Effect 2

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

GeForce GTX 275		108 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		96 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (13%)

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 275		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 275		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 275		67 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 31 FPS (86%)

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GeForce GTX 275 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce GTX 275 wins overall, by 88 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 275		813 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		725 FPS
	Difference: 88 FPS (12%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 275 should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 11808 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 should be quite a bit (more or less 69%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20640 (69%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 should be a lot (approximately 48%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5724 (48%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.