GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 960 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 117 Watts (92%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 50% quicker than the Radeon HD 6850 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is much (more or less 33%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12208 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (about 49%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6850, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.