GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a little bit (about 9%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (more or less 33%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (33%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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, HDR 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.