Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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 R9 280X		8886 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 5416 (156%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 6970 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (64%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (more or less 29%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24320 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 960 (4%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.