Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to 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 quite a bit (more or less 141%) better at texture 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

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be a small bit (more or less 3%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6850, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.