GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Avatar

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

Radeon HD 5830		41 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		38 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (8%)

Battlefield Bad Company 2

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

GeForce GTX 280		36 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		35 FPS
	Difference: 1 FPS (3%)

Left4Dead 2

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

Radeon HD 5830		81 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		80 FPS
	Difference: 1 FPS (1%)

Mass Effect 2

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

GeForce GTX 280		117 FPS
Radeon HD 5830		97 FPS
	Difference: 20 FPS (21%)

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 280		38 FPS
	Difference: 27 FPS (71%)

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Radeon HD 5830 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 5830 wins overall, by 10 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.

Radeon HD 5830		319 FPS
GeForce GTX 280		309 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (3%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 280 should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 5830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 13696 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be just a bit (about 8%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3360 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (about 51%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5830, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (51%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.