GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6970, which has GPU core speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 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 GT 230		65 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (285%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 is 358% faster than the GeForce GT 230 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (358%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (approximately 860%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75680 (860%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is superior to the GeForce GT 230, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23760 (540%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across 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 should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's 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 fill rate also depends 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 maximum fill rate.