GeForce GTX 780 Ti vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 780 Ti		250 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		336000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 208000 (163%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti will be much (more or less 302%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		210000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 157800 (302%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		42000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (81%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.