Geforce GTX 690 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 960 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

Geforce GTX 690		13111 points
Radeon HD 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 10716 (447%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 173 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 690 should be 200% quicker than the Radeon HD 6850 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256512 (200%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 is a lot (about 530%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 197040 (530%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be quite a bit (more or less 136%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6850, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33760 (136%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.