GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 465 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 12608 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be a small bit (approximately 12%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3292 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 465 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7424 (62%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.