Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 260X, which features a clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1625 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon R7 260X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 56000 (54%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be just a bit (approximately 14%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (more or less 45%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 260X, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (45%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.