Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular 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 GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 670 should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 should be much (approximately 46%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32080 (46%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (14%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.