GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB should theoretically be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 12912 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a small bit (approximately 4%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1472 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 128 (1%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.