GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7790, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7790 should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (114%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 should be a lot (approximately 67%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (67%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (67%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes 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 speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.