GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7970, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this specific model. 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 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 107 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7970 should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 200640 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 will be a lot (about 381%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 93776 (381%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 should be a lot (more or less 188%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19340 (188%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.