GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 880 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1375 MHz on this model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6970 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (206%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be much (approximately 151%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50880 (151%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18560 (193%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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