Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7790, which has a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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 7790		4330 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 860 (25%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 165 Watts (194%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 7790 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (83%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (more or less 51%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 7790. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28480 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (more or less 76%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7790, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12160 (76%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.