GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which has a clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22512 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is just a bit (more or less 10%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a little bit (about 20%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6790, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2688 (20%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.