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GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 features a core clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 999 MHz. It also makes use of a 448-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5970, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1600 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 182 Watts
Radeon HD 5970 294 Watts
Difference: 112 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 is 129% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is quite a bit (about 529%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970 232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 195136 (529%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is a lot (more or less 475%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970 92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 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

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 5970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 5970
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 16, 2008 November 2009
Code Name G200 Hemlock XT
Memory 896 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 576 MHz 725 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 4000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts 294 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 256000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 232000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 92800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 1600 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 160 (x2)
Render Output Units 28 64 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 1400 million 2154 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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