GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which features a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 122 Watts (153%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7770 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 39888 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is just a bit (about 4%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1472 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is a little bit (about 1%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7770, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 128 (1%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 is worked out 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.