GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this card. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 160 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (2400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be much (about 1254%) better at AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65200 (1254%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA 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 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23000 (885%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 maximum fill rate.