GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 975 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 12912 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be just a bit (approximately 9%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3136 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is superior to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.