GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which has core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 5830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16192 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (about 75%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33600 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (about 84%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5830, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10720 (84%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of 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.