GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7970, which has a clock speed of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7970 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 152112 (136%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 will be much (about 185%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76928 (185%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is quite a bit (about 84%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.