GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12928 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be quite a bit (approximately 51%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13920 (116%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at 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 can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.