GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 410 (13%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should in theory be a small bit better than the Radeon HD 6950 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 17408 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be a lot (more or less 68%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28400 (68%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is much (more or less 31%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (31%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.