GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is a little bit (about 20%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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 is a little bit (more or less 20%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 7770, and also capable of handling higher 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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range 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 is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.