Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1650 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 470 4GB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (32%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB is much (about 68%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48128 (68%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 470 4GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4032 (16%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 applied in one second.

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