GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 156 Watts (195%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 is 97% quicker than the Radeon HD 7770 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 69696 (97%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a bit (about 20%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8160 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a small bit (about 20%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7770, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (20%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.