GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 should be 46% quicker than the Radeon HD 5870 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be quite a bit (more or less 112%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76128 (112%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44864 (165%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.