Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 comes with a GPU core speed of 576 MHz, and the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM runs at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is comprised of 216 SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 148 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is 106% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 118512 (106%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is much (more or less 45%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18528 (45%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is much (more or less 49%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7872 (49%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model	GeForce GTX 260 Core 216	Radeon HD 4870 X2
Manufacturer	nVidia	AMD
Year	September 16, 2008	Aug 12, 2008
Code Name	G200	R700
Memory	896 MB	1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed	576 MHz	750 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed	1998 MHz	3600 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP)	202 watts	350 watts
Bandwidth	111888 MB/sec	230400 MB/sec
Texel Rate	41472 Mtexels/sec	60000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	16128 Mpixels/sec	24000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	216	800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units	72	40 (x2)
Render Output Units	28	16 (x2)
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	448-bit	256-bit (x2)
Fab Process	65 nm	55 nm
Transistors	1400 million	956 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a 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. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices