GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 7990

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7990, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 950 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 7990		375 Watts
	Difference: 330 Watts (733%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7990 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		576000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 563200 (4400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7990 is quite a bit (about 6656%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		243200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 239600 (6656%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7990 should be much (approximately 3278%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		60800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 59000 (3278%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in one second.

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