Radeon HD 6770 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		108 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 67 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 should be 129% faster than the Radeon HD 6770 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		67200 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (129%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be quite a bit (approximately 122%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6770 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (122%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (122%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.