GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which has a core clock speed of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6970 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be much (approximately 79%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37248 (79%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16352 (138%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at 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 the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.