GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is a bit (about 12%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (25%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.