GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which features core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 will be 1150% quicker than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (more or less 1500%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66000 (1500%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (approximately 1064%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23400 (1064%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.