Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should theoretically be a lot better than the Geforce GTX 680 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
	Difference: 47744 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 44%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39168 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (about 26%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6592 (26%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.