Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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 should be quite a bit faster than the Geforce GTX 670 overall. (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 small bit (about 14%) more effective at AF 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 using a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is a better choice, though only just barely. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.