GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 92 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5970 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 144112 (129%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is much (more or less 459%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 190528 (459%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (more or less 475%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 76672 (475%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.