GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7970, which features GPU clock speed of 925 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 7970		8225 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 3455 (72%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7970 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 168000 (175%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 will be a small bit (more or less 12%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13008 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7016 (31%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.