GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a lot (more or less 1500%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66000 (1500%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23400 (1064%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels that 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 amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.