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GeForce GTX 1080 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

The GeForce GTX 1080 makes use of a 16 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1607 MHz. The GDDR5X RAM runs at a frequency of 1251 MHz on this specific card. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5970, which has a core clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1080 180 Watts
Radeon HD 5970 294 Watts
Difference: 114 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 1080 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 5970 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080 327680 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5970 256000 MB/sec
Difference: 71680 (28%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 is a bit (about 11%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 5970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080 257120 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5970 232000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 25120 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be a little bit (about 11%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 5970, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080 102848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5970 92800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10048 (11%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 1080

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5970

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.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 1080 Radeon HD 5970
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year May 2016 November 2009
Code Name GP104-400 Hemlock XT
Memory 8192 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 1607 MHz 725 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 10008 MHz 4000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 180 watts 294 watts
Bandwidth 327680 MB/sec 256000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 257120 Mtexels/sec 232000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 102848 Mpixels/sec 92800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 2560 1600 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 160 160 (x2)
Render Output Units 64 64 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5X GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 16 nm 40 nm
Transistors 7200 million 2154 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 12.0 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 1080

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5970

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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