GeForce GTX 295 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 295 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 108576 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is a lot (approximately 207%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62160 (207%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 should be a lot (more or less 169%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20256 (169%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.