GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (164%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (253%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be a lot (about 405%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (405%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is quite a bit (approximately 573%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25200 (573%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.