GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 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 GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (127%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is much (more or less 49%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23168 (49%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13792 (117%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.