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GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

The GeForce GTX 960 makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which features a clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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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 960 7627 points
Radeon HD 7870 XT 6390 points
Difference: 1237 (19%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870 XT 15 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960 11 Mh/s
Difference: 4 (36%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960 120 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT 185 Watts
Difference: 65 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960 112000 MB/sec
Difference: 80000 (71%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is much (approximately 23%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960 72128 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 16672 (23%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a lot (approximately 22%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 7870 XT, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960 36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870 XT 29600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 6464 (22%)

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

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GeForce GTX 960

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 960 Radeon HD 7870 XT
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year January 2015 November 2012
Code Name GM206 Tahiti LE
Memory 2048 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 1127 MHz 925 MHz
Memory Speed 7000 MHz 6000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 120 watts 185 watts
Bandwidth 112000 MB/sec 192000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 72128 Mtexels/sec 88800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 36064 Mpixels/sec 29600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1024 1536
Texture Mapping Units 64 96
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 28 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2940 million 4313 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 12.0 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 960

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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