GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 400(80x5) SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 136 Watts (223%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5670 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 395%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61300 (395%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 210%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13000 (210%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.