GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 215 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 168320 (271%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a lot (more or less 44%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92). (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be a lot (more or less 131%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (131%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.