GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which features a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5850 should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 950 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 22272 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a little bit (about 6%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3048 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is quite a bit (approximately 41%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5850, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9568 (41%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.