GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870, which features 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 Texture Address Units 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 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 27 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 41712 (37%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (about 93%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38528 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15872 (98%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.