GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 97024 (61%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is much (more or less 348%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 180160 (348%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5970 is superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 72064 (348%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.