GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1500 MHz on this particular card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870 XT		6390 points
GeForce GTX 560		3030 points
	Difference: 3360 (111%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 560 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 63872 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be quite a bit (about 96%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43440 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be a little bit (about 14%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 560, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (14%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.