Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 270, which features a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270 should in theory be a bit better than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be a little bit (approximately 2%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be just a bit (about 13%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 higher screen 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 texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.