GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5850 should be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be much (more or less 26%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10728 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a lot (approximately 44%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7072 (44%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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