GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 67% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (more or less 65%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19408 (65%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.