GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is much (approximately 50%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34992 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a bit (approximately 13%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 870M, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3016 (13%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.