GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this specific card. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

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

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot (approximately 36%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is quite a bit (approximately 23%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.