GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (186%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (194%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be quite a bit (more or less 300%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52800 (300%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is superior to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (482%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.