Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 260X, which features clock speeds of 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 1625 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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 7970		8225 points
Radeon R7 260X		4381 points
	Difference: 3844 (88%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7970		21 Mh/s
Radeon R7 260X		14 Mh/s
	Difference: 7 (50%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (117%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7970 will be 154% quicker than the Radeon R7 260X overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160000 (154%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 should be a lot (more or less 92%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56800 (92%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is superior to the Radeon R7 260X, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (68%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.