GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7770, which has core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 156 Watts (195%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 7770 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 69696 (97%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is just a bit (more or less 20%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8160 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is a little bit (about 20%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7770, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.