GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 GTX 465		200 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTX 465 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 127808 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is much (about 125%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33292 (125%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (more or less 24%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 465, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4576 (24%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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