GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870		6230 points
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		1897 points
	Difference: 4333 (228%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 55104 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (approximately 178%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51200 (178%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (approximately 48%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (48%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.