GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this particular model. It features 1120 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6870 should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is much (more or less 37%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13536 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (more or less 79%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.