GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which has core clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 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 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 189 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (344%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (more or less 590%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 198400 (590%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be a lot (more or less 867%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 83200 (867%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could 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 core clock speed. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.