GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (206%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 151%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50880 (151%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.