GeForce GTX 275 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7970, which comes with a core clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7970 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 275 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
	Difference: 136992 (108%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is a lot (about 134%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 275. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67760 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is quite a bit (about 67%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 275, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11876 (67%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.