GeForce 8800 GS vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950, which has a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 Stream Processors, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GS in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (more or less 167%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GS. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GS, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.