GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 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 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 177 Watts (94%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 590 should be 114% quicker than the Radeon HD 5870 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 174720 (114%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a bit (approximately 14%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9696 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot (more or less 114%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 5870, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31072 (114%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.