GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications 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 along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (344%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 150% faster than the GeForce GTX 860M in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a little bit (about 9%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6112 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 860M, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12848 (101%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.