GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB will be 484% faster than the Radeon HD 6950 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 774298 (484%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB will be quite a bit (approximately 401%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 282400 (401%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6950, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 115520 (451%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.