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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has a core clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 153 Watts (326%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (approximately 715%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 61760 (715%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be quite a bit (about 493%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon HD 6950 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 December 2010
Code Name G84 Cayman Pro
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 5000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 200 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 160000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 70400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 25600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 1408
Texture Mapping Units 16 88
Render Output Units 8 32
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 2640 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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