GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which has core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB is 4% faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is much (approximately 54%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28160 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11264 (54%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.