GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6790, which has a clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 22512 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be quite a bit (more or less 23%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7872 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2688 (20%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.