GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6790, which comes with GPU clock speed of 840 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should in theory be a small bit superior to the Radeon HD 6790 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24576 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB will be a lot (about 54%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18240 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 285 1GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6790, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7296 (54%)

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. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.