Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 280 features a clock frequency of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1107 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB 150 Watts
GeForce GTX 280 236 Watts
Difference: 86 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 280 will be 23% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 26496 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a lot (about 61%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 18160 (61%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (more or less 61%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 12000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 7264 (61%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model GeForce GTX 280 Radeon HD 4870 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 17, 2008 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name G200 RV770 XT
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 602 MHz 750 MHz
Memory Speed 2214 MHz 3600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 236 watts 150 watts
Bandwidth 141696 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 48160 Mtexels/sec 30000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19264 Mpixels/sec 12000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 240 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 80 40
Render Output Units 32 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 512-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1400 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

One Response to “GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB”
Denis says:

GTX 280 vs 4870 2GB

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield