GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which features a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 86 Watts (101%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7790 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15888 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 will be quite a bit (about 35%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14528 (35%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is superior to the Radeon HD 7790, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 128 (1%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.