GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600(320x5) Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5870 should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 570 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a lot (about 55%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24080 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be just a bit (about 8%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5870, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2080 (8%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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