GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1050 MHz on this model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

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 980		13552 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 10682 (372%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is much (more or less 186%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 93728 (186%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be a lot (approximately 150%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6870, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43264 (150%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.