Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB features a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory is set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which features core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 175 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 25 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870 153600 MB/sec
Difference: 6400 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be a little bit (about 14%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 9600 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be quite a bit (more or less 25%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 6400 (25%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model Radeon HD 6950 2GB Radeon HD 7870
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year December 2010 March 2012
Code Name Cayman Pro Pitcairn XT
Memory 2048 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 800 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 5000 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 200 watts 175 watts
Bandwidth 160000 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 70400 Mtexels/sec 80000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 25600 Mpixels/sec 32000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1408 1280
Texture Mapping Units 88 80
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2640 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

One Response to “Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870”
Mshenay says:

With the 7870s OC abilities it does surpass the 6950 by large margins, granted it has less TPU and SPUs but it can clock to 1250 mhz mem and 1200+ Core Clocks. I got a 7870 as an upgrade to my 6950, and I'm happy :3

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield