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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1050 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 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 in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (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 quite a bit (about 163%) better at AF 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is a better choice, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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.