GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1050 MHz on this specific model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units 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 590		6680 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 3810 (133%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 214 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 590 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 193920 (144%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is a lot (about 54%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27296 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 590 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29472 (102%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.