GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be a little bit better than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32384 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit (about 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20992 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (approximately 45%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (45%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many 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.