GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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 960		7627 points
Radeon HD 7870		6230 points
	Difference: 1397 (22%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870		172 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960		154 Sol/s
	Difference: 18 (12%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7870		16 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960		11 Mh/s
	Difference: 5 (45%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (37%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a small bit (more or less 11%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7872 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4064 (13%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.