Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 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 R9 270X		6590 points
	Difference: 1635 (25%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7970		21 Mh/s
Radeon R9 270X		18 Mh/s
	Difference: 3 (17%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7970 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 270X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 84800 (47%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 should be a lot (approximately 48%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 270X. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38400 (48%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a small bit (more or less 8%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7970, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (8%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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