GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which comes with GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Avatar

Settings:	Ultra High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		52 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		36 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (44%)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		44 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		32 FPS
	Difference: 12 FPS (38%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		76 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		57 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (33%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		100 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		65 FPS
	Difference: 35 FPS (54%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		104 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		74 FPS
	Difference: 30 FPS (41%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		124 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		94 FPS
	Difference: 30 FPS (32%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		78 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		36 FPS
	Difference: 42 FPS (117%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5850		30 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		24 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (25%)

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Radeon HD 5850 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 5850 wins overall, by 190 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 5850		608 FPS
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		418 FPS
	Difference: 190 FPS (45%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be quite a bit (about 26%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10728 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is quite a bit (approximately 44%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7072 (44%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.