GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7770, which features clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7770 should be 16% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 9920 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is a bit (about 4%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is quite a bit (about 54%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (54%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.