GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which has GPU core speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 is 38% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (38%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a bit (about 10%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 47%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8960 (47%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant 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 get to the max fill rate.