GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7970, which features core speeds of 925 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 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

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7970 should in theory be quite a bit better 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 (about 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

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, by a large margin. (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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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