GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1050 MHz on this specific model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 should be 250% quicker than the GeForce GT 230 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (250%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is quite a bit (approximately 473%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (473%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.