GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which comes with core clock speeds of 925 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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 XT		6390 points
GeForce GTX 660		5063 points
	Difference: 1327 (26%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 XT, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 47808 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be a bit (about 13%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is quite a bit (more or less 26%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6080 (26%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.