Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 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 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 7481 (312%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 173 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should be 150% faster than the Radeon HD 6850 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 192000 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is quite a bit (approximately 244%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90800 (244%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (106%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.