GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5770, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 260 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 5770 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
	Difference: 35088 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is a little bit (approximately 8%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2864 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2528 (19%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.