GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which has a core 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 features 1600 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 97024 (61%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (about 348%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 180160 (348%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be much (about 348%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 72064 (348%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.