GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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 960		7627 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 4757 (166%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a lot (more or less 43%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21728 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7264 (25%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.