GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7850, which comes with a clock frequency of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7850		5200 points
GeForce GTX 560		3030 points
	Difference: 2170 (72%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically be a little bit superior to the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 25472 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot (approximately 21%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9680 (21%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.