GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7770, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7770 should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is a bit (approximately 19%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7770 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (67%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.