Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7970, which features GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

Radeon HD 7970		8225 points
Radeon HD 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 5830 (243%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (97%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7970 should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 136000 (106%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is quite a bit (approximately 218%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81200 (218%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 is a bit (approximately 19%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 6850, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.