GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM), which features core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 480 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		63 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) will be 11% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (about 75%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (50%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out 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 handling 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 graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.