GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 118 Watts (169%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (more or less 286%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (286%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (approximately 518%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (518%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.