GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which has core clock speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should be 4% quicker than the Radeon HD 7850 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be just a bit (approximately 6%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is a lot (more or less 33%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6784 (33%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.