GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 280 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 11904 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (approximately 66%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31840 (66%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12736 (66%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 fill 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.