GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should in theory be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be much (about 38%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11472 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.