GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this card. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (178%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit (about 110%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (110%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a lot (about 167%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (167%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.