GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5970, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 5970 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 122080 (91%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (more or less 583%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 198008 (583%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be a lot (approximately 282%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 470, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 68520 (282%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.