GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which features GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (249%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 89920 (356%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB will be a lot (more or less 131%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17040 (131%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 2GB is superior to the GeForce GT 320, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.