GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti will be 11% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 13056 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is quite a bit (about 75%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22608 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.