GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with core clock 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 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 116 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (approximately 167%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be much (approximately 288%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19000 (288%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.