GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency 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 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 153 Watts (326%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (614%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (more or less 715%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61760 (715%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing 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 8600 GT 256MB 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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels 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 amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.