GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5870, which features clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB should in theory be a small bit better than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (more or less 31%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16160 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (31%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 higher this number, the better the video 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 card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.