GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (195%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6850 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 102720 (406%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is a lot (about 187%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24240 (187%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is quite a bit (about 474%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 320, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20480 (474%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.