GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 7950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7950, which comes with a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 36 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7950 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 98304 (69%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 is quite a bit (approximately 86%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41440 (86%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 is superior to the GeForce GTX 280, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6336 (33%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied in one second.

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