GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1440(288x5) Stream Processors, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be just a bit (approximately 15%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6840 (15%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2720 (12%)

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 transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 reach the max fill rate.