GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which features core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be a lot (about 700%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61600 (700%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (482%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.