GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 178% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (178%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a lot (approximately 110%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (110%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 167%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (167%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.