GeForce GTX 275 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1600 Stream Processors, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 275 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
	Difference: 128992 (102%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be quite a bit (more or less 358%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 275. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 181360 (358%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be a lot (about 424%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 275, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 75076 (424%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must 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 applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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 reach the maximum fill rate.