GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 52608 (42%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a bit (about 5%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (about 110%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (110%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.