GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950, which features a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 1530 (47%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (more or less 50%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34992 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3016 (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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied 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 worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.