GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5850, which comes with a core clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 87 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 650 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be much (approximately 54%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 650. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18344 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (about 37%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 650, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6272 (37%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.