Radeon HD 7950 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7970, which has GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1375 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised 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 7950		7731 points
	Difference: 494 (6%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon HD 7950		21 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7970		21 Mh/s
	Difference: 0 (0%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7970 should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 7950 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 will be quite a bit (more or less 32%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7950. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28800 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (16%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.