Transistors

How would the number of transistors affect the performance of a graphics card?

Most reviews relate the core and memory frequencies to performance. But how about the number of transistors?

Let's have a look at two Sapphire cards:

HD 2600 PRO HD 2400 PRO

process (Die size) 0,065 µ 0,065 µ
transistor count 390 Mio. 180 Mio.
memory options 256 MB 256 MB
Core frequency 600 525
Memory frequency (eff.) 1000 800

Well, they have similar clock frequencies, and both use DDR2 memory, but an HD2600 has twice the number of transistors of an HD2400.

So, same question again, how does the number of transistors affect the performance of a graphics card?

Forget about the number of transistors here. It's the amount of and type of memory, memory interface size, clock speed and motherboard interface that count