GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is 33% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX should be quite a bit (approximately 23%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTX is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (15%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.