GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a clock frequency of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7850		5200 points
GeForce GTX 560		3030 points
	Difference: 2170 (72%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7850 should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 25472 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is much (more or less 21%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9680 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a little bit (more or less 6%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 560, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.