GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 960 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6850 will be 102% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 64640 (102%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 will be much (about 51%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12576 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is much (approximately 142%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14540 (142%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 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.