GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

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

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		32 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		20 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (60%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		57 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (12%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		76 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		71 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (7%)

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)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		61 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		56 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (9%)

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 260 216SP 55 nm		65 FPS
	Difference: 7 FPS (11%)

Left4Dead

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

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		78 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		78 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

Left4Dead 2

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

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		77 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		74 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)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		96 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		94 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (2%)

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 260 216SP 55 nm		36 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (53%)

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 260 216SP 55 nm		24 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (25%)

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 260 216SP 55 nm		50 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 14 FPS (39%)

---

Radeon HD 4870 512MB wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB wins overall, by 5 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.

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		647 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		642 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (1%)

---

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is much (more or less 38%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11472 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4128 (34%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends 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.