GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6970, which features core speeds of 880 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 is 206% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (206%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (approximately 151%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50880 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a lot (about 193%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.