GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1408 Stream Processors, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be quite a bit (about 552%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59600 (552%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (about 374%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20200 (374%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.