GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5850, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1440(288x5) Stream Processors, 72 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5850 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8800 GTX overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (48%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is much (more or less 42%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9400 (68%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.