GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 should be 1% quicker than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 1024 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is much (about 36%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18560 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be a lot (about 23%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4864 (23%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.