GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of 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 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (127%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be quite a bit (approximately 49%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23168 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is much (approximately 117%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's 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 also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.