GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6770, which features a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6770		108 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6770 should be 17% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		67200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 should be a small bit (about 7%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (7%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 should be a lot (approximately 50%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (50%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high 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 amount of texture units by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.