Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific card. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be a lot faster 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 quite a bit (more or less 44%) better 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 will be much (approximately 26%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be applied in one second. This figure 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 graphics 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.