GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6850, which features a core clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 960 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 660		5063 points
Radeon HD 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 2668 (111%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 13% faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16192 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (more or less 111%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41200 (111%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is superior to the GeForce GTX 660, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1280 (5%)

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 moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.