Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 295X2, which comes with GPU core speed of 1018 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2816 Stream Processors, 176 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 295X2		21205 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 17965 (554%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
Radeon R9 295X2		500 Watts
	Difference: 300 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 295X2 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 6950 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 480000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 will be much (more or less 409%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 287936 (409%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 295X2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 104704 (409%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.