GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GTX 470 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 96480 (72%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is much (about 77%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26008 (77%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be a small bit (more or less 1%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 280 (1%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.