GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which features a clock frequency of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 is 57% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 64112 (57%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (approximately 129%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47616 (129%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be quite a bit (more or less 75%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12032 (75%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen 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 of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 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.