GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which features GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 136 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 650 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160000 (200%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be a lot (about 165%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 650. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55744 (165%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 650, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8672 (51%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.