Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 670 is 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 will be much (about 46%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32080 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 should be a little bit (more or less 14%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (14%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.