GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22512 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be much (about 22%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8928 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12672 (79%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.