GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 880 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 6970		3470 points
GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
	Difference: 533 (18%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6970, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 42080 (31%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be much (more or less 149%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50488 (149%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a small bit (more or less 16%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 470, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3880 (16%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.