GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which has a GPU core clock speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
Radeon HD 7850		5200 points
	Difference: 1480 (28%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 235 Watts (181%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 should be 114% quicker than the Radeon HD 7850 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 174720 (114%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot (more or less 41%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22656 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 590 is superior to the Radeon HD 7850, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30752 (112%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of 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.