GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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 980		13552 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 10312 (318%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 980 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is much (about 105%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73728 (105%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is superior to the Radeon HD 6950, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46464 (182%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.