GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7770, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, 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 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (114%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be 55% faster than the Radeon HD 7770 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should be a bit (approximately 4%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1472 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.