GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which has GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1440(288x5) SPUs, 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 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 214 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 200320 (157%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be much (about 49%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25496 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot (more or less 151%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5850, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35072 (151%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount 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 speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.