GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 7950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950, which has clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 will be 51% faster than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 81024 (51%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 will be much (about 73%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37760 (73%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4864 (23%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.