GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1200 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 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 HD 7870		6230 points
	Difference: 4637 (74%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
	Difference: 90 (52%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 3 (19%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970 is 46% quicker than the Radeon HD 7870 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a lot (more or less 37%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29200 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a lot (more or less 110%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 7870, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (110%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.