Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which features a core clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2816 SPUs, 176 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (140%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is a lot (about 163%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 114400 (163%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should be quite a bit (about 163%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (163%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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