GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1120 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24576 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB is just a bit (about 3%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (approximately 39%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8064 (39%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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