GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (127%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (approximately 63%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27200 (63%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (137%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.