Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which has a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Geforce GTX 670		7351 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 4111 (127%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 670 should theoretically be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 6950 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 should be a lot (about 46%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 is a little bit (more or less 14%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6950, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends 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 max fill rate.