GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. 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)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should in theory perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 465 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 12608 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is just a bit (approximately 12%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3292 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 465 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7424 (62%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.