GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 71040 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is quite a bit (more or less 105%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25776 (105%)

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 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18540 (181%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.