GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of 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 GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 should be 127% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (about 49%) more effective 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 resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is the winner, 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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.