GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1200 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the Radeon HD 7850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a bit (about 6%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a lot (about 33%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6784 (33%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.