GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 13056 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is much (about 75%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22608 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14304 (119%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.