GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 975 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be a small bit better than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3328 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is a little bit (approximately 13%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5360 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9920 (62%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.