GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units 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 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 270 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (approximately 52%) more effective 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 should be a lot (about 133%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 270, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.