GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which has clock speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7850 will be 243% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (243%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a lot (more or less 64%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21440 (64%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17920 (187%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.