GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		229 Sol/s
	Difference: 33 (14%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (7%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (approximately 22%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (22%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (163%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.