GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 960 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
Radeon HD 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 2561 (107%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 117 Watts (92%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (approximately 33%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12208 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (approximately 49%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 6850, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12256 (49%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.