Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6970, which features GPU clock speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 600 (21%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (31%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (about 68%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34080 (68%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be a little bit (more or less 2%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6970, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 640 (2%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.