GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which comes with GPU core speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6970 should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 285 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 17024 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 63%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32640 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be a lot (more or less 36%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7424 (36%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.