GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7970, which features core speeds of 925 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7970 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 152112 (136%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 will be quite a bit (approximately 185%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76928 (185%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 should be quite a bit (approximately 84%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13472 (84%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.