GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 16704 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is just a bit (approximately 4%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be quite a bit (about 80%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (80%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be 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 the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.