GeForce GTX 1060 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1060 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 is much (more or less 71%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50080 (71%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.