GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		58 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 236 Watts (407%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5970 is 691% quicker than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		32384 MB/sec
	Difference: 223616 (691%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is a lot (more or less 2220%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 222000 (2220%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be quite a bit (more or less 1756%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 87800 (1756%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.