GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, 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

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

The GeForce GTX 970, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general. (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 (about 37%) more effective at texture 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 (about 110%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7870, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.