GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is 33% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be quite a bit (more or less 23%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTX is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.