Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a 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 comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 12 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a little bit (approximately 4%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is a small bit (about 6%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.