GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 67% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a lot (more or less 65%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19408 (65%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25056 (209%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.