GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a core clock frequency of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7850		5200 points
GeForce GTX 560		3030 points
	Difference: 2170 (72%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7850 should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 25472 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be quite a bit (about 21%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9680 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a small bit (approximately 6%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 560, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.