Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, 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

Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 4780 (167%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57856 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 155%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78368 (155%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the Radeon HD 6870, but not by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3392 (12%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.