GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB should be 4% faster than the Radeon HD 5870 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a lot (approximately 31%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16160 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (31%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount 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 speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 chip could possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.