GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which features core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 780 (27%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 43008 (32%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a bit (approximately 20%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a little bit (more or less 17%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6870, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (17%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.