Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which has a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be 25% faster than the Geforce GTX 670 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 should be a little bit (about 14%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12880 (14%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is the winner, but only just. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (14%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.