GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which comes with core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (249%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 89920 (356%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be a lot (approximately 131%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17040 (131%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (178%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.