GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 116 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be a lot (more or less 167%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is much (approximately 288%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19000 (288%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.