GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. 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		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 102272 (80%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit (more or less 32%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14640 (32%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is just a bit (approximately 8%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1920 (8%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.