GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1200 MHz on this particular card. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (337%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5870, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 128320 (508%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (about 425%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55040 (425%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is quite a bit (more or less 530%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 320, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.