GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features clock speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs 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 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 168 Watts (92%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit (about 63%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23136 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be a lot (approximately 49%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.