Nvidia Geforce GTX 280 vs. ATI Radeon 4870

[Jameson]

The 4870 isn't really a high end card to compete against this beast from Nvidia, but let's compare them anyway, just for fun.

	GeForce GTX 280	ATI Radeon HD 4870
Process:	65nm	55nm
Core Clock:	602MHz	750MHz
Shader Clock:	1296MHz	1050MHz
Memory Clock:	1107MHz	1800MHz
Memory Type:	GDDR3	GDDR5
Memory interface:	512-bit	256-bit
Memory capacity:	1024MB	512MB / 1024MB
Stream Processor Units:	240	800
Raster Operation Units (ROPs):	32	16
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs):	80	32
Standard Shader Model:	4.0	4.0
Standard DirectX Version:	DirectX 10	10.1
Video playback technology:	PureVideo HD Technology	Avivo HD (UVD2)
Power Connector(s):	8-Pin & 6-Pin PCI-E Connector	Dual 6-Pin PCI-E Connector
Thermal Design Power (TDP):	236 Watt	157 Watt
MSRP:	$499USD*	$329USD
News:	View all GT200 news	View all RV770 news

Totally different memory approaches here.

[Jameson]

just so you know, memory bandwidth for the cards are:

GTX 280: 141.7 gb/s
4870: 123.8 gb/s

[Deton]

yeah but look at the price, almost double. Now we want to see the performance comparison numbers.

[Gareth]

So there will be no 10800, it will be the 280?

[kaganader]

the GTX beats the 4870 in memory bandwidth because of the 512bit memory interface? the 4870 has the memory running at 3870MHz stock! damn thats definably going to be running right with my processor!

yeah the price is a big factor in which one flourish and which one Fails ftw!
especially that we are in a recession right now, who's going to fork over 600+ dollars? Not that many people I would say.

I would probally just wait for the 4870x2 to come out, guessing it would sell for around 500-550 for it and would outperform the GTX280.

Just my speculation

**Edit**

But I'm an Nvidia fan, I just hate there prices. With them its either pay car insurance, gas, and food or get one card.

[bullydog]

I think 4870 will be behind a fair bit look at the difference: (But i hope im wrong and really hope that AMD can prove something here)

Raster Operation Units (ROPs): 32 vs 16
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs): 80 vs 32

[Jaguar Jim]

This is loooking like it might be a Great Summer after all, I especially liked the Idea of 480 Shader Processors, after all that's where all the Post Processing is Done, and it just might Give ATI an edge! I have been caught up by the Nvidia Bug for so long, I long for some serious Numbers and Testing, considering what a flop the 9800GTX turned out to be.

[smith]

I think 4870 will be behind a fair bit look at the difference: (But i hope im wrong and really hope that AMD can prove something here)

Raster Operation Units (ROPs): 32 vs 16
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs): 80 vs 32

i hear you on that but i think the massive number of extra shaders that ati has will give it an advantage. also the clock speeds arnt all that high on the GTX 280's shaders. plus the ratio's are about the same as the previous generation.

[Doman]

The 280 has double the previous generation, the 4870 only jumps 1/3rd. And i doubt AMD have managed to massivly increase the performance of each SP, otherwise the texture and raster unit count would have been higher.

[sugarfresh]

interesting, though nvidia may have doubled the number of shaders, they've also lowered the usual 1500Mhz or higher clock for them to 12XXMHz. and ATI's shaders have increased in speed from 775 on the 3870 to 1050 on the 4870, that's about a 27% increase, plus the numbers have increased. though nvidia's stream processors in the past were more efficient, they were also about 2x faster(88GT-1500MHz, 3870-775). nvidia's number of SP have increased, but they've slowed down, i'm sure nvidia has made improvements but i dout ATI has just been twiddling their thumbs. So nvidia has increased the number of SP's have increased but slowed down. ATI has supposedly 800 SP's according to these sites(next post)

so 800 SP's that are almost as fast as nvidia's i'd say its going to be closer on performance between the flagships than with the last 2 flagships from ATI(2900XT, HD 3870).

i would include the faster core clock of the 4870, but that's never made a difference in the past, but an increase in the # of SP's by 2.6x and a 27% increase of speed to boot sounds like a major improvement.
_________________________GTX_4870
Raster Operation Units (ROPs): 32 16
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs): 80 32
Though these are major differences, it depends what the ROP's and TMU's are used for, i've heard that ROP's or SP's can be used for AA or AF, so not sure what the difference this will make.

I'm not quite sure how this 512-Bit interface versus 256-Bit GDDR5 interface will turn out, not too savy on memory tech, though i hope that massive GDDR5 clock dominates.

Though just cause of hte trend i'm not going to be surprised if Nvidia comes out on top again. Though i hope that ATI has something going for them, we need more competition like with the 88GT and 3870. Not sure about you all but i noticed a big price drop of about 100$ from 270 to 170 when they both were out.

[sugarfresh]

these are the websites where i got 800 SP's from and theres some more, just google it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...05&Itemid=1%A0
http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7841.html

[Jameson]

corrected the original thread to show 800 SP's instead of 400. Damn that does change things.

memory bandwidth has also change on the 4870.

was proeject as: 123.8 gb/s

now: 115.2 gb/s

[sugarfresh]

wow, i'm surprised that the bandwidth is that low with 1GB of ram, not to mention the clock of it. the 8800Ultra had only 768MB and its bandwidth was 103-108GB, i'm surprised that with the majorly better memory, a much faster core speed that the bandwidth would be a good bit ahead of the Ultra, not a measly 7GB or so higher. HMMMMMMM i can't wait to see these new cards, i'm not a fanboy of either i have a 8800GT rite now and i'm probly going to get the HD 4870 when it comes out, hopefully the benchies i'll read up on will further my decision towards the HD 4870, i don't have 500+ only about 150 and i'd have no problem working for 200 more for the ATI card. us dollars that is

[Skyguy]

Ferrari.........Lamborghini...........which to choose, eh?

A 4870 or X2 would feed my Maximus very nicely. Must feed the Maximus!!!

Honestly, we're getting to the point where most of these new cards will slay current games out there, so I'd rather get the bang for the buck......no big deal if it's 10% behind in framerates, it'll still push more than enough.

I wonder with the smaller die, will ATI's cards finally run cooler and quiet?

[smith]

also ati claims that they are no longer running the AA out of the sp's so the AA preformance of the 4870 should be greatly improved over the previous gen. take this with a pinch of salt tho i only read this somewhere not sure if its true or not. if it is i think this will be a very intresting battle. not to metion the higher overclockability of a cooler running card.

[sugarfresh]

i definetly agree with skyguy, even on crysis, with my 8800GT that's oc'ed some can play crysis at a solid 21-23 fps(q6600@3.15GHz) and drops to 15 here and there during scenes with a lot of activity(DX10 very high). normally i would call that bad lag but on crysis i really can't notice the lag till its round 16 or lower and its still playable lag at that point, not sure why.The way i see it is the HD 4870 will be better than my 8800GT probably by a good bit, and that performance will be good enough for me, mite allow be to throw in 4aa and 8x or 16xaf, though that's just a hope, i've beat the game twice so i won't be playing the campaign, but that'd be a nice benchmark to see at a steady 30+fps with one card. well even if the 4870 is a failure, i hope that these new cards coming 260/280GTX and 4870/4850 are actual next gen performance wise, not necessarily architecture wise. hmmm time will only tell.