GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 180 Watts (106%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be 80% quicker than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
	Difference: 102144 (80%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be a bit (about 14%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7392 (14%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2304 (10%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output 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 maximum fill rate.