GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs along with 72 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a bit (more or less 6%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2792 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (about 60%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 5850, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13856 (60%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.