GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up 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 1060 3GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 174 Watts (145%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 59392 (30%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is much (more or less 114%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 123568 (114%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5970 is superior to the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20512 (28%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.