GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which has a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 182400 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB is much (approximately 167%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be a lot (more or less 167%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (167%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.