GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which has core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 109 Watts (86%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 13696 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (approximately 29%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10960 (29%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is a lot (approximately 29%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 280, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5536 (29%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per 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 better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.