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GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti has core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1026 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti 116 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 150 Watts
Difference: 34 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be 17% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti 98496 MB/sec
Difference: 16704 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be just a bit (about 4%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti 28800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (more or less 80%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti 21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB 12000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9600 (80%)

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

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Amazon.com

Other US-based stores

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.fr

Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Amazon.com

Other US-based stores

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.fr

Specifications

Model GeForce GTX 550 Ti Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia ATi
Year March 2011 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name GF116 RV770 XT
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Bus PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 900 MHz 750 MHz
Shader Speed 1800 MHz (N/A) MHz
Memory Speed 1026 MHz (4104 MHz effective) 900 MHz (3600 MHz effective)
Unified Shaders 192 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 32 40
Render Output Units 24 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 192-bit 256-bit
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0
Power (Max TDP) 116 watts 150 watts
Shader Model 5.0 4.1
Bandwidth 98496 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 28800 Mtexels/sec 30000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 21600 Mpixels/sec 12000 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

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