Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which comes with core clock speeds of 925 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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 7870 XT		6390 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 3520 (123%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT will be 43% faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is much (about 76%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38400 (76%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (3%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.