GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 36608 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 54%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38032 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46688 (182%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number 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 speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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