GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 1024 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be a lot (about 36%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18560 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be quite a bit (about 23%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4864 (23%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.