GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 is 14% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a lot (approximately 26%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10728 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be much (about 44%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7072 (44%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one 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 sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.