GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be much (approximately 26%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10728 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be much (about 44%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7072 (44%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.