GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of 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)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be 43% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 48112 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 70%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28928 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (about 59%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9472 (59%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved 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 the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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