In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti Zotac AMP! 1GB Edition are marginally better than the AMD Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition.

The HD 7850 has a 25 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the GTX 560 Ti. This results in the HD 7850 providing 1.6 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The HD 7850 has a 25 MHz higher core clock speed than the GTX 560 Ti and the same number of Render Output Units. This results in the HD 7850 providing 0.8 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The HD 7850 was released over a year more recently than the GTX 560 Ti, and so the HD 7850 is likely to have better driver support, meaning it will be more optimized for running the latest games when compared to the GTX 560 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti Zotac AMP! 1GB Edition and the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition have the same amount of video memory, but are likely to provide slightly different experiences when displaying game textures at high resolutions.

The HD 7850 has 12.8 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the GTX 560 Ti, which means that the memory performance of the HD 7850 is slightly better than the GTX 560 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti Zotac AMP! 1GB Edition has 384 Shader Processing Units and the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition has 1024. However, the actual shader performance of the GTX 560 Ti is 730 and the actual shader performance of the HD 7850 is 849. The HD 7850 having 119 better shader performance and an altogether better performance when taking into account other relevant data means that the HD 7850 delivers a marginally smoother and more efficient experience when processing graphical data than the GTX 560 Ti.

The HD 7850 transistor size technology is 12 nm (nanometers) smaller than the GTX 560 Ti. This means that the HD 7850 is expected to run slightly cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the GTX 560 Ti. While they exhibit similar graphical performance, the HD 7850 should consume less power than the GTX 560 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti Zotac AMP! 1GB Edition requires 170 Watts to run but there is no entry for the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition. We would recommend a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the GTX 560 Ti and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 7850. The two GPUs have been recommended a PSU with the same amount of wattage. As such, there is no need to worry about which will more significantly affect your yearly electricity bills.