GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency 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 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6950 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (47%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be quite a bit (approximately 126%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39200 (126%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (23%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus 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 better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 figure is worked out 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.