GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7970, which has GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		58 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 192 Watts (331%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7970 is 715% faster than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		32384 MB/sec
	Difference: 231616 (715%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is much (more or less 1084%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 108400 (1084%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24600 (492%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated 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 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.