GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 48112 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 70%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28928 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (approximately 59%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9472 (59%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.