GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		210 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 should theoretically be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		144000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be a lot (approximately 27%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		40992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11208 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6080 (26%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.