Radeon HD 6790 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which features core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 6790 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot (about 110%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6790, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12160 (90%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.