GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which comes with core clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600 SPUs as well as 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 570 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
	Difference: 104000 (68%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (more or less 428%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 188080 (428%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is a lot (more or less 217%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 570, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 63520 (217%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.