GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which has GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5970 will be 129% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 144112 (129%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be a lot (more or less 459%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 190528 (459%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is much (more or less 475%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 76672 (475%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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