Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6850 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (88%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be much (about 141%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52400 (141%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7950 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6850, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (3%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.