GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (47%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be quite a bit (more or less 126%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39200 (126%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (23%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.