GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 580		4956 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 1716 (53%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be a lot (more or less 42%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (more or less 45%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its 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 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.