GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which features a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 71040 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be much (more or less 105%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25776 (105%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.