GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 6990

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6990, which features a core clock frequency of 830 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation 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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 980		13552 points
Radeon HD 6990		5820 points
	Difference: 7732 (133%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 6990		24 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (20%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon HD 6990		375 Watts
	Difference: 210 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6990 will be 43% faster than the GeForce GTX 980 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6990 is a bit (more or less 11%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 980. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		159360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15232 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be much (about 36%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6990, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6990		53120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18944 (36%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.