Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270, which features core clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1400 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270, in theory, should perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be a bit (about 2%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.