GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
Radeon R9 270		5943 points
	Difference: 4924 (83%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
Radeon R9 270		15 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (27%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970 is 25% quicker than the Radeon R9 270 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a lot (about 52%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 270. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37200 (52%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (about 133%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R9 270, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 38400 (133%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.