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Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 185 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 15 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
Difference: 32000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is much (more or less 26%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 18400 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is a little bit (more or less 16%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4000 (16%)

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

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Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

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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

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Model Radeon HD 6950 2GB Radeon HD 7870 XT
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year December 2010 November 2012
Code Name Cayman Pro Tahiti LE
Memory 2048 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 800 MHz 925 MHz
Memory Speed 5000 MHz 6000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 200 watts 185 watts
Bandwidth 160000 MB/sec 192000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 70400 Mtexels/sec 88800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 25600 Mpixels/sec 29600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1408 1536
Texture Mapping Units 88 96
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2640 million 4313 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.3

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. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870 XT

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.

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