GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with core clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (144%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6850, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 102720 (406%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is much (approximately 272%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (272%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 will be quite a bit (more or less 396%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 315, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19800 (396%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can 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 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.