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GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 features a clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 999 MHz. It also features a 448-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 182 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 200 Watts
Difference: 18 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 111888 MB/sec
Difference: 48112 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (approximately 91%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 33536 (91%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (more or less 59%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 16128 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9472 (59%)

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

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 6950
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 16, 2008 December 2010
Code Name G200 Cayman Pro
Memory 896 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 576 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 5000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts 200 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 160000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 70400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 25600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 1408
Texture Mapping Units 64 88
Render Output Units 28 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 1400 million 2640 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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