GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (169%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7870 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be quite a bit (more or less 809%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (809%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be quite a bit (about 627%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 230, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (627%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.