GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

Grand Theft Auto V | 1920x1080 | Very High

Radeon HD 7970		37 FPS
GeForce GTX 580		25 FPS
	Difference: 12 (48%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7970		8225 points
GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
	Difference: 3269 (66%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7970 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 580 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 71616 (37%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is a lot (more or less 140%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68992 (140%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (more or less 25%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 7970, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7456 (25%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.