GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		229 Sol/s
	Difference: 33 (14%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (7%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be much (about 22%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (163%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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