GeForce GTS 150 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6790, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 840 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1050 MHz on this specific model. It features 800 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTS 150 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (320%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is quite a bit (more or less 41%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13760 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (14%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.