Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which comes with a clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (140%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should be a lot (about 163%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 114400 (163%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is quite a bit (approximately 163%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (163%)

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's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.