GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has clock speeds of 925 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 33024 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be much (more or less 71%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36960 (71%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be much (about 43%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8864 (43%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.