GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be just a bit superior to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32384 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a lot (more or less 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20992 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (45%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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 reach the maximum fill rate.