GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 926 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1650 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 470 4GB will be 19% faster than the GeForce GTX 480 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 33792 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB will be much (more or less 182%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76528 (182%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3968 (13%)

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 maximum 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 card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.