Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be a bit (about 14%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (more or less 25%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.