GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be a small bit superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 18720 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be just a bit (more or less 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3992 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot (more or less 102%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12280 (102%)

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 transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed 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 the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.