GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which features a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses 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)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 67% quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (approximately 65%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19408 (65%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25056 (209%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.