GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 960 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6850 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (48%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is a little bit (more or less 1%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (1%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 will be a lot (about 80%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11000 (80%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.