Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1625 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 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 R7 260X		4381 points
Radeon HD 6950		3240 points
	Difference: 1141 (35%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 should be 54% quicker than the Radeon R7 260X in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
	Difference: 56000 (54%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be a small bit (approximately 14%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 260X. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 should be much (approximately 45%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 260X, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (45%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.