GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency 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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 148 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be 106% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 118512 (106%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be much (more or less 45%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18528 (45%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7872 (49%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.