Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which comes with GPU core speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 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 R9 380 4G		8837 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 5367 (155%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380 4G, in theory, should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6970 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be a lot (approximately 29%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24160 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 4G is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2880 (10%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.