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Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has a clock speed of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 185 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 15 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
Difference: 32000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be a lot (approximately 26%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 18400 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be a bit (about 16%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4000 (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

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Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 6950 2GB Radeon HD 7870 XT
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year December 2010 November 2012
Code Name Cayman Pro Tahiti LE
Memory 2048 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 800 MHz 925 MHz
Memory Speed 5000 MHz 6000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 200 watts 185 watts
Bandwidth 160000 MB/sec 192000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 70400 Mtexels/sec 88800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 25600 Mpixels/sec 29600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1408 1536
Texture Mapping Units 88 96
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2640 million 4313 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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