GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (116%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (147%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (approximately 186%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32800 (186%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.