GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5830, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 is 11% faster than the Radeon HD 5830 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 13696 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be just a bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3360 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a lot (more or less 51%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 5830, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (51%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant 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.