GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Avatar

Settings:	Ultra High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		64 FPS
GeForce GTX 470		61 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (5%)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60 FPS
GeForce GTX 470		52 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (15%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		134 FPS
GeForce GTX 470		124 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (8%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 470		99 FPS
Radeon HD 4870 X2		99 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

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Radeon HD 4870 X2 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 wins overall, by 21 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 4870 X2		357 FPS
GeForce GTX 470		336 FPS
	Difference: 21 FPS (6%)

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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

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be a lot (approximately 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 should be a small bit (about 1%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 can possibly record to the local memory in a 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.