GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950, which features clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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

The GeForce GTX 580, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be much (more or less 42%) faster with regards to AF 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 will be quite a bit (about 45%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.