GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. 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 960		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be a bit (more or less 2%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1728 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is quite a bit (more or less 41%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10464 (41%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.