GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Avatar

Settings:	Ultra High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		42 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		41 FPS
	Difference: 1 FPS (2%)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		40 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		35 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (14%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		121 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		97 FPS
	Difference: 24 FPS (25%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 5830		65 FPS
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		44 FPS
	Difference: 21 FPS (48%)

---

GeForce GTX 285 1GB wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB wins overall, by 9 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		247 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		238 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (4%)

---

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 30976 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB will be a small bit (more or less 16%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7040 (16%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB is a lot (approximately 62%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5830, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (62%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.