GeForce GTX 1080 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 114 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1080 should be 28% quicker than the Radeon HD 5970 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
	Difference: 71680 (28%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 is a small bit (more or less 11%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25120 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be a small bit (about 11%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5970, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10048 (11%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of 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, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.