GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 should be 20% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a little bit (more or less 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (42%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 processed in a 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 worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.