GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this card. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (85%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be much (about 91%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33600 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11800 (86%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends 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 max fill rate.