Radeon HD 6790 vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 19% quicker than the Radeon HD 6790 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is much (about 110%) better at texture 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 high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.