GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5870, which has core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 is 20% quicker than the GeForce GTX 560 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 25472 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is a lot (about 50%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22640 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1280 (5%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.