GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this model. 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 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 153 Watts (326%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (614%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (about 715%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61760 (715%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (approximately 493%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21280 (493%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per 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 this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.