GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which comes with a core clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 800 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6790 is 91% faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (91%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be quite a bit (more or less 41%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13632 (41%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be a little bit (about 14%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1632 (14%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It 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 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.