Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which features a clock speed of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 7870 XT		6390 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 3150 (97%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should in theory be a bit better than the Radeon HD 6950 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be quite a bit (about 26%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 6950, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (16%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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 maximum fill rate.