GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which has core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 975 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (79%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be a lot (more or less 260%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 104128 (260%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56064 (350%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.