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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm features a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM is set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also features 216 Stream Processors, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870 151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 171 Watts
Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 111888 MB/sec
Difference: 22512 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is quite a bit (more or less 22%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 41472 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 8928 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 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

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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm Radeon HD 6870
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year December 22, 2008 October 2010
Code Name G200b Barts XT
Memory 896 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 576 MHz 900 MHz
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 4200 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 171 watts 151 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 134400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 41472 Mtexels/sec 50400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 28800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 216 1120
Texture Mapping Units 72 56
Render Output Units 28 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 1400 million 1700 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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