GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32384 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a lot (more or less 42%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20992 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much (more or less 45%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.