GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has a core clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5850 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a lot (more or less 42%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15336 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be much (about 44%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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