Radeon HD 4670 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features 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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (186%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (more or less 193%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46400 (193%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a lot (approximately 327%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (327%)

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 across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.