GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which features a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 960 SPUs, 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 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be just a bit (about 11%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4272 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8672 (54%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 applied per second.

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