GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1408 Stream Processors, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 136 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 100% faster than the GeForce GTX 650 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (more or less 108%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 650. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36544 (108%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes 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 the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.