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GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6970
Intro
The GeForce GTX 260 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 999 MHz on this specific card. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has clocked the core speed at 880 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.
Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| GeForce GTX 260 |
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182 Watts |
| Radeon HD 6970 |
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250 Watts |
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Memory Bandwidth
The Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)
| Radeon HD 6970 |
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176000 MB/sec |
| GeForce GTX 260 |
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111888 MB/sec |
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Texel Rate
The Radeon HD 6970 should be quite a bit (about 129%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)| Radeon HD 6970 |
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84480 Mtexels/sec |
| GeForce GTX 260 |
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36864 Mtexels/sec |
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Pixel Rate
The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (approximately 75%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)| Radeon HD 6970 |
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28160 Mpixels/sec |
| GeForce GTX 260 |
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16128 Mpixels/sec |
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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
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.
GeForce GTX 260Amazon.com
Other US-based stores
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
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Radeon HD 6970Amazon.com
Other US-based stores
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
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Specifications
| Model | GeForce GTX 260 | Radeon HD 6970 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | nVidia | ATi |
| Year | June 16, 2008 | December 2010 |
| Code Name | G200 | Cayman XT |
| Fab Process | 65 nm | 40 nm |
| Bus | PCIe x16 2.0 | PCIe x16 |
| Memory | 896 MB | 2048 MB |
| Core Speed | 576 MHz | 880 MHz |
| Shader Speed | 1242 MHz | (N/A) MHz |
| Memory Speed | 999 MHz (1998 MHz effective) | 1375 MHz (5500 MHz effective) |
| Unified Shaders | 192 | 1536 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 64 | 96 |
| Render Output Units | 28 | 32 |
| Bus Type | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 448-bit | 256-bit |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 10 | DirectX 11 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 3.1 | OpenGL 4.1 |
| Power (Max TDP) | 182 watts | 250 watts |
| Shader Model | 4.0 | 5.0 |
| Bandwidth | 111888 MB/sec | 176000 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 36864 Mtexels/sec | 84480 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 16128 Mpixels/sec | 28160 Mpixels/sec |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.
Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.
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