GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1600(320x5) Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB should in theory perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be much (more or less 31%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16160 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a lot (approximately 31%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (31%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high 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 amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.