GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 is 56% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be a lot (about 37%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (about 109%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15000 (109%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.