Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

The Radeon HD 6950 comes with a GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM runs at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 7870 6230 points
Radeon HD 6950 3240 points
Difference: 2990 (92%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 is 4% faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be a little bit (about 14%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (about 25%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6950, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model Radeon HD 6950 Radeon HD 7870
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year December 2010 March 2012
Code Name Cayman Pro Pitcairn XT
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 800 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 5000 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 200 watts 175 watts
Bandwidth 160000 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 70400 Mtexels/sec 80000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 25600 Mpixels/sec 32000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1408 1280
Texture Mapping Units 88 80
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2640 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 in one second. This number is worked out 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

6 Responses to “Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7870”
Anonymous says:

the 7870 sapphire OC edition is better

MXM says:

but who are the best 6950 or 7870 ?! for gaming ?!?!?!

Marcel says:

The 6950 are 100x better !!!

Anonymous says:

Useless compare :/

saad says:

the hd 7870 is little bit better then hd 6950 and capable of handling games on full hd 1920x1080 screen resolution and much better than hd 6950

volga says:

the 6950 is a little bit fast than 7870 because of memory bandwith

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield