Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which features a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 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 R9 290		9876 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 6406 (185%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 will be 82% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (82%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (approximately 52%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43520 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23040 (82%)

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 one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.