GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a lot (about 700%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61600 (700%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 482%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (482%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in a second.

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