GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (344%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 1150% quicker than the GeForce 8500 GT overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot (approximately 1856%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66800 (1856%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is quite a bit (more or less 1322%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23800 (1322%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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