GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 Stream Processors, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is 23% faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 36608 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be a lot (more or less 54%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38032 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be much (more or less 182%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46688 (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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.